So this article should confuse the femtards - on one hand she is a strong lady fighting the cause, removing the stigma of hafu, yet the other hand she won a beauty contest, which are usually anathema to femtards...
A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
21–30 of 61 posts
Re: A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
#22There 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…
Yes, let's forget about all the nightclubs I couldn't go into, being physically barred by guards outside holding their crossed arms, saying "gaijin dame!".
Let's forget about the complete lack of upward mobility in any office I worked in.
Let's forget about the neighbors who completely shunned me until it was my turn as the block representative, at which point they criticized my lack of understanding of the bureaucracy.
Let's forget about the countless times people would cross to the other side of the street as soon as they saw me coming.
I just thanked my lucky stars that I wasn't Brazilian. They have it the worst.
Now, I had lots of nice experiences there, especially in the countryside where people are a lot friendlier, but by no means can you say that racism does not permeate their entire society.
Re: A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
#23Finland, another country that's traditionally been very isolationist -- before the EU came along, it was second only to Albania in having the fewest % of resident foreigners -- had its own version of this in 1996, when a Finn of half-Nigerian descent was chosen as Miss Finland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lola_Wallinkoski
Italy has never been very isolationist, but there has been some debate when Denny Méndez [1] won Miss Italia.
Re: A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
#24This entire article is about stereotyping, and the third paragraph is rife with the authors own stereotypes.
"My confusion lasts only until Ariana opens her mouth. Suddenly everything about her shouts out that she is Japanese, from the soft lilting tone of her voice, to her delicate hand gestures and demure expression."
What is this trash.
Re: A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
#25So this article should confuse the femtards - on one hand she is a strong lady fighting the cause, removing the stigma of hafu, yet the other hand she won a beauty contest, which are usually anathema to femtards...
It's almost as if different people have a wide variety of opinions on different matters (even if they share other opinions).
Re: A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
#26> 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.
i think being 'half' racial in the US is an extremely complex and subtle experience of existence, and by entertaining the thought that this is somehow unique to japan is doing a huge disservice to the experience of being biracial or mixed in the US and anywhere in the world.
the reason it is notable is because it is notable almost anywhere on earth.
Re: A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
#27> 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 ... brazil ...the largest japanese population outside of japan is there. i think they might have a concept of hafu there Yes, but I'd bet that the connotations of "hafu" in a society where mixed race is the norm are very different from those where it is unusual. So much so that you might consider it to be a different word, even if it happens to be spelled the same.
being half japanese in brazil is rare, and the brazilians have a word for it.
Re: A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
#28There 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…
> it's a Japanese word, after all, and is not derogatory in Japanese
That reminds me of 外人 (gaijin). Many will argue it's not a negative word, but when you hear people say it, it's almost never said in a very friendly, inclusive sort of way.
It reminds me of the way white people in their 80s and 90s will use the word 'nigger', and the expectation is "that's just what everyone called them back then, it wasn't racist." And you know, some of the time it may well not have been. But it was always meant as a way of saying, "not one of us."
Now sure, as a literal fact, this person is half Japanese, and this is the word to express that. But what's more important, is when and why is it being brought up? It shouldn't matter, and there should be very few times in life when you need to say or ask it.
These sorts of things seem inevitable when you have such an overwhelmingly homogenous society (99% native, and most of the remaining 1% still Asian.) I'm not quite as hopeful as the author that this is going to change any time soon there.
Re: A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
#29> There is no word like hafu outside Japan, but I think we need it here. Welp, she's Japanese alright, she's even mastered nihonjinron : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihonjinron But more or less the same concept elsewhere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapa (Hawaiian, and another loan from the English "half") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luk_khrueng (Thai for "half child") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%BAnxu%C…
That link about nihonjinron is interesting. I see that affect all the time in Thailand. There is a constant discussion of "Thainess" and what it means to be Thai. The government instituted classes on Thainess that are mandatory for foreigners who teach English here. There are regular initiatives to add Thainess teaching to the already pathetic school curriculum. I didn't realize other countries also had a fixation on their identity.
Re: A beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
#30This entire article is about stereotyping, and the third paragraph is rife with the authors own stereotypes. "My confusion lasts only until Ariana opens her mouth. Suddenly everything about her shouts out that she is Japanese, from the soft lilting tone of her voice, to her delicate hand gestures and demure expression." What is this trash.
Stereotypes are shortcuts for us to more easily categorize people. The term "stereotype" has gotten a negative connotation associated with it because often stereotypes are used in a discriminatory manner, but the truth is that we all stereotype to some degree to ease our mental load.
In this case, the author is identifying behaviors that are more common among people who were raised in Japan than behaviors you might expect from someone raised in the US. My reading was that, while she is ethnically mixed (to whatever extent that phrase is meaningful), she is culturally Japanese through and through.