Beauty contests are still a thing?
A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
11–20 of 61 posts
Re: A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
#12Beauty contests are still a thing?
Same way football matches are still a thing. Just because it doesn't entertain you, doesn't mean it doesn't entertain millions of people who don't share your interests.
Re: A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
#13> There is no word like hafu outside Japan, uh, what? how about "half", the exact word that 'hafu' is supposed to emulate? you can't borrow a word from another language, and then claim it's unique to yours! i'm fairly confident nearly everyone on earth knows what it means to be 'half', or just mixed race/ethnicity in general. in fact there are even places on earth where mixed race is the norm. try going to brazil. FU…
"how about "half", the exact word that 'hafu' is supposed to emulate?"
And in Tokyo Dialect, the 'フ' ('fu') in 'ハーフ' ('haafu') has its 'u' muted to silent or near-silent so the pronunciation is nearly identical to English 'half'.
It's practically an identical borrowing in both meaning and pronunciation; the 'u' is an historical artifact of an obsolete romanization system. Even the glyphs 'フ' and 'ハ' are used -- among other things -- to signify that a word is maintaining its foreign nature and not made Japanese.
Re: A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
#14> There is no word like hafu outside Japan, uh, what? how about "half", the exact word that 'hafu' is supposed to emulate? you can't borrow a word from another language, and then claim it's unique to yours! i'm fairly confident nearly everyone on earth knows what it means to be 'half', or just mixed race/ethnicity in general. in fact there are even places on earth where mixed race is the norm. try going to brazil. FU…
>where mixed race is the norm
Humanity may well end up there, given the easy transportation beginning only in the last century. Halfs beget quarters, then 1/(2^n) for ever increasing n.
Re: A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
#15> There is no word like hafu outside Japan, uh, what? how about "half", the exact word that 'hafu' is supposed to emulate? you can't borrow a word from another language, and then claim it's unique to yours! i'm fairly confident nearly everyone on earth knows what it means to be 'half', or just mixed race/ethnicity in general. in fact there are even places on earth where mixed race is the norm. try going to brazil. FU…
>where mixed race is the norm Humanity may well end up there, given the easy transportation beginning only in the last century. Halfs beget quarters, then 1/(2^n) for ever increasing n.
Not quite true. Genetics isn't just dilution. You can get a grandchild that is very similar to a grandparent and dissimilar to either parent. And so on.
Re: A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
#16> There is no word like hafu outside Japan, uh, what? how about "half", the exact word that 'hafu' is supposed to emulate? you can't borrow a word from another language, and then claim it's unique to yours! i'm fairly confident nearly everyone on earth knows what it means to be 'half', or just mixed race/ethnicity in general. in fact there are even places on earth where mixed race is the norm. try going to brazil. FU…
Its not the word; its the meaning. I'm sure we don't appreciate all the subtlety the label 'hafu' brings to a person in Japan. Remember, here classmate committed suicide over it. I don't think the English 'half' would do that.
Re: A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
#17Re: A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
#18Who exactly is a Tanzanian were questions that were also asks also when a Tanzanian of indian descent[1] represented Tanzania in international beauty pageants.
Re: A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
#19There are a few things to keep in mind:
1) Ariana Miyamoto was chosen as Miss Japan by Japanese people.
2) The critics of Miyamoto are an extreme, vocal minority on Twitter and 2chan.
3) Although Japanese contestants often perform well at the international level, beauty pageants of this sort do not receive much attention within the country regardless of the contestant.
4) "Hafu" is a Japanese word derived from the English "half". It is used to refer to biracial people, but there is no connotation that they are "half" a person. I cannot understand the logic of the author who says that the word sounds derogatory in English -- it's a Japanese word, after all, and is not derogatory in Japanese.
The author uses point (2) as well as his short personal experience in Japan to make broad statements to the effect that Japanese people in general do not accept those whose appearance differs from their own. Japan makes an easy target in this regard because of the well-known (outside Japan, at least) concept of Nihonjinron, as well as the persisting sense that Japan is an isolated country where outsiders will never be accepted into the "in group". Due to this, there is an expectation (particularly in foreign media) that Japanese are racist, and any proof, even that of an extreme minority on Twitter, is taken as evidence in support of this.
Of course, living in Japan, I remember hearing similar broad statements about racism in the United States concerning the backlash against electing a black president in 2008.
The real lesson here is that we should not be basing our impressions of an entire society on a vocal minority, no matter how much their opinions conform to our expectations.
Re: A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
#20There are a few things to keep in mind: 1) Ariana Miyamoto was chosen as Miss Japan by Japanese people. 2) The critics of Miyamoto are an extreme, vocal minority on Twitter and 2chan. 3) Although Japanese contestants often perform well at the international level, beauty pageants of this sort do not receive much attention within the country regardless of the contestant. 4) "Hafu" is a Japanese word derived from the En…
On point 4, I'd wonder that it's because the author is British. There's a whole nervousness about referring to anyone using race as a differentiator (lest you be considered racist?). To the point where someone will describe someone else by imaginative means even when 'the black guy with glasses' would actually be the most succinct way.