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The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train

japantimes.co.jp

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Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train

#71

Post by yibg »

barry-cotter wrote: post #3

My god, it must be so unpleasant to be the kind of person who thinks about that for the hours necessary to write an essay like the one he wrote ten years ago, and to continue stewing on it for ten years. I’ve lived in China for more than seven years and I definitely have an empty seat beside me on the metro more often than Chinese people and children and tourists say 老外(foreigner) regularly enough. So what? Life is g…

I see this type of attitude applied to non western countries a lot and I never understood it. It also bothers me a great deal.

I’m ethnically Chinese but have lived in either the US or Canada for most of my life. I’ve been the beneficiary to the changing attitude towards minorities here and have seen how things have changed for the better in my time here.

Imagine if the pervasive attitude has been “You are being discriminated against? So what, life is good here. You are never going to be Canadian / American. If you don’t like it go back to where you came from.”

Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train

#72

Post by xelxebar »

shatobi wrote: post #56

I think there is a lot of over-interpretation of his. It never seems to happen to me. When you want to be the victim, you might seem to notice it happening. And certainly, there might be some people who don't like foreigners. But as far as I can tell I don't notice it. Perhaps the author has some other features that might make one want to sit beside someone else. The discriminative feature might not him being a forei…

Perhaps, but the discrimination one feels living in Japan is more about the sum total of a bunch of separately innocent actions that, taken together, feel kind of crappy.

I've lived in Japan for about ten years now and certainly sympathize with the author. It's a great place to live, but there are still things that just plain suck about it, too.

It's kind of like this. Imagine, if every time you started a conversation with someone they, just once, wrinkled their nose. If it happened a single time, you might not even notice it, and even if you did it's not really a big deal.

However, after it happens day in and day out with pretty much every person you interact with, it's easy to start doubting yourself, "Am I making a weird face, too? Do I stink? Am I the one causing this for some reason? What's going on?"

The same sort of thing happens with the empty seat. It's relatively harmless as an individual instance. However, after it happens a thousand times, after having anything you share get interpreted, for the thousandth time, as a This Country vs Your Country Compare and Contrast session, after getting ignored in favor of people trying out their English on you for the thousandth time, then it just gets a litte exhausting.

Any of those things is fine in isolation, but the straw that broke the camel's back is the same as the million that didn't.

Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train

#73

Post by ananosy »

I've been living in Tokyo for quite a bit, I'm married to a Japanese woman. I'm Caucasian, born in Estern Europe.

I just asked my wife about this and she told me that even though it's a stereotype, some westerners have either strong perfume smells or due to their size are very hard to sit next to. So instead of trying to play the lottery when sitting next to a foreigner, they'd rather sit next to a Japanese.

This, obviously, doesn't apply to what they consider attractive foreigners.

Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train

#74

Post by ddiq »

theroo wrote: post #64
ddiq wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, I commented on his picture and it would be pretty hard to notice his width and not his race. I don't see why this is pertinent, though, he's not Japanese and I was commenting on the fact that he's not Japanese, not on what race he was.

Width? Don’t make me laugh. It’s racism. Call it what it is. So we can pause, to allow improvement and to better uphold the idea that people are equal. This kind of avoidance and apologizing of racism are what plant the seeds of xenophobic ideologies.

You seem to have a problem with reading comprehension, but I'll respond anyway.

The idea that all people are equal is false. It's not a logical conclusion, all scientific evidence is contrary to the idea, and looking at results we see this is not the case.

Logically, the idea that populations that diverged thousands of generations ago and went through many selection events in vastly different environments would end up equal is absurd.

Scientifically, all data points to the contrary, and twin studies are not invalid just because you don't like the result. We're getting to the point where we know what genes lead in large part to what traits, and the results are exactly what we would expect.

Looking at the world itself, it's clear that all people are not equal. Choose any competitive field and you will not see an equal racial representation among the standouts.

Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train

#75

Post by flippinburgers »

I've been living in Japan longer than this guy and I can say that these sorts of things happen, but I find it totally ridiculous to get upset about them. If you are angered about the way your are treated, you really should return to your home country.

I say this because the level of self-absorption in this mentality is astounding. People are naturally going tend to feel a range of emotions around a foreigner that they wouldn't feel around someone who looks like them. Rather than being upset or lambasting the Japanese culture for "racism" it is much more productive, I feel, to treat people kindly and let them discover that there really is nothing to fear.

While he did do that with the little girl in the article, he also went ahead and wrote an entire newspaper article that effectively condemns Japan.

The overt cultural aggressiveness that I see dominating the airwaves thanks to websites like twitter more often than not leaves me feeling sick to my stomach: I have no respect for people who feel they have to right to forcefully make someone else do or act a particular way regardless of how "correct" they feel their way is. It is a seat on a train for gods sake.

Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train

#76

Post by taneq »

flukus wrote: post #50
theroo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s black. Did you read that part?

Honest question, Are Japanese any more likely to be racist against black people than white people? Or a Chinese person? Usually racism (the hatred variety at least) comes from a degree of familiarity. You won't find a lot of KKK members in Scandinavia and you won't find much antisemitism in areas with no jews. American race relations are not universally applicable. Edit - added negation operator.

Dunno about more or less but when I was in Japan I saw Japanese people get up and move, not just to a different seat, but to a whole different part of the train carriage, when a couple of white Westerners sat next to them.

Also I'm guessing you're missing a 'not' in the last line there?

Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train

#77

Post by wahern »

flukus wrote: post #50
theroo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s black. Did you read that part?

Honest question, Are Japanese any more likely to be racist against black people than white people? Or a Chinese person? Usually racism (the hatred variety at least) comes from a degree of familiarity. You won't find a lot of KKK members in Scandinavia and you won't find much antisemitism in areas with no jews. American race relations are not universally applicable. Edit - added negation operator.

Hollywood has unfortunately exported American-style black animus to the world, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if Japanese are more racist toward blacks than whites, especially American blacks. Also, the whole light-skin, dark-skin thing was never unique to Europeans. But relative to their general prejudice against foreigners any heightened prejudice might not be very discernible.

Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train

#78

Post by RaiseProfits »

ng12 wrote: post #65
RaiseProfits wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s still racism even if it’s culturally acceptable.

Is that form of racism still bad if it's culturally accepted? There are places in the world where it is not only culturally but legally encoded that non-natives are second class citizens. Should those places be denied the opportunity to self-determine that policy?

This is only one facet of a common problem that virtually every people on earth deals with. Is it so hard to acknowledge?

> There are places in the world where it is not only culturally but legally encoded that non-natives are second class citizens.

Hell, in Israel you can even be a native and be a second class citizen. I wouldn’t look to these countries as role models for human rights, though.

Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train

#79

Post by masonic »

GreaterFool wrote: post #63
theroo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think when you experience prejudice regarding your race, it’s unfair to characterize that as “stewing”. Maybe you don’t find this article or his initial piece insightful; that’s fair enough. But I also think it’s fair of him to shine a light on unfair treatment in the place he lives, without people suggesting - without irony - that he “go home”.

FWIW I live in Japan and I get uneasy around foreigners. And I'd be especially uneasy around folks from my home country! > experience prejudice regarding your race I think it might be more about culture than race. Race is a good proxy for "not Japanese". While Japan is not 100% ethnically uniform, if someone doesn't look Japanese they are most likely not Japanese. When I see a foreigner I don't know if they've been i…

  if someone doesn't look Japanese they are most likely not Japanese
Like the Ainu?

Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train

#80

Post by nrp »

GreaterFool wrote: post #63
theroo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think when you experience prejudice regarding your race, it’s unfair to characterize that as “stewing”. Maybe you don’t find this article or his initial piece insightful; that’s fair enough. But I also think it’s fair of him to shine a light on unfair treatment in the place he lives, without people suggesting - without irony - that he “go home”.

FWIW I live in Japan and I get uneasy around foreigners. And I'd be especially uneasy around folks from my home country! > experience prejudice regarding your race I think it might be more about culture than race. Race is a good proxy for "not Japanese". While Japan is not 100% ethnically uniform, if someone doesn't look Japanese they are most likely not Japanese. When I see a foreigner I don't know if they've been i…

Somewhat ironically, Singapore is one of the most racially and ethnically diverse places in the world, demonstrating that ethnic non-uniformity shouldn't be a proxy for unknown dangers.
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