31–40 of 287 posts
Japanese society has some social quircks which are kind of unsettling for me as a foreigner, but those have not spoiled my stay here.
Some interesting points, though.
And, as you can see, there's no possible debate in the west: you have to have bicyclists, otherwise you're a backwards asshole. And I have to live with that, because that's society: you have to deal with people who don't think the way you do.
(You just have to look at the downvotes to see what I'm talking about ;P)
See bad thing - link to Japanese people as a whole or in general, rather than the individual.
It's an easy mistake to make. Especially if you do ever hear it in the inverse direction. "Foreigners do X or Y", etc.
If he aimed to replace generic instances of 'Japanese people' or 'in Japan' with specific reference to the instance or person, I think he'd have had a better time in life.
And yes, it's difficult to encounter any amount of racism and not feel that the group of people that the racist person came from, do not in fact as a whole demonstrate racist behaviours in general. Obviously not at a higher cognitive level, but at an emotional reacting to a certain way of having been dealt with or treat.
But it's absolutely necessary to stop the generalisation, even if only for one's personal mental health. It serves no purpose other than wiring our animal brains up more strongly, to think of us vs them.
And try and notice it more often in Western media too. Any time there is a mention of someone's race, see whether it would look out of place with Black or Latino or Asian replaced with white.
It's often a completely irrelevant piece of information.
As the use of the word Japanese is often irrelevant in this post.
Yep lot's of terrible people in lots of places in the world, and the fact that they were Japanese in this instance is more related to the fact that they were born and brought up in Japan than some inherent generic flaws with an entire country of people.
And yes Japan has problems that aren't in other parts of the world, and vice versa. It still doesn't befit using `X people do Y` type generalisations.
In my opinion, Western Europe, US and Canada are quite open, and let people, if not integrate, at least mind their own business.
Immigrants are usually also to blame, since often integration is not a priority. I've lived in several places around Europe, and usually foreigners stick together: it is easier to become friends with a German in France than it is in Germany, maybe because immigrants have similar mindsets, and experience similar problems.
What worries me is that it seems these relatively open societies are rapidly closing: nationalism is on the rise everywhere.
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What country do you come from that denies entry to people based on how they translate Japanese signs? You're full of shit. Not surprised you hide behind a throwaway.
The article is full of whining about imaginary BS like gender-bias and the writer seems to be doing everything is his/her power to look for problems that really don't exist like complaining about the word "foreigner" and trying to find racism or discrimination in everything. Japan may have it's problems but this is ridiculous.
My only question is why did it take him 10 years to "get fed up" with it? Most people who leave do so after a year or so. Most people who stay longer than a couple years tend to stay for a very long time.
White text on black background - what a horrible choice of colours. Cannot read it for more than 3 minutes.
1. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mercury-reader/okn...
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I'm glad people like him weren't allowed in our country. What country do you come from that denies entry to people based on how they translate Japanese signs? You're full of shit. Not surprised you hide behind a throwaway.
Maybe you are the throwaway of author's?
So then I went to Japan and haven't received or heard of anyone receiving similar vitriol aside from the OP.
A foreign coworker (same race and nationality as me) endlessly complains about racism, discrimination, and being stared at here. I've experienced none of it.
I'm not here to dismiss the author's claims, but most of the weeaboo to Japan hater crowd I've found is people who lived very cushy lives with close family bonds, and when they put that aside in a somewhat "cold" culture, they take offense to everything. As a cold, unsocial person myself, Japan is incredibly welcoming in that I feel like I can finally be left alone without being isolated. I hated having people randomly start conversations with me in America. I disliked the "not my job" attitude of Americans. I very strongly disliked how confrontational and easily angered Americans were (especially how people complained about restaurant services and the minorest of things, while here, it's practically unseen).
And then there's the people complaining about being a "foreigner forever." Honestly, how many asians in America get asked,"so, where are you from?" whenever they meet someone? I've seen it countless times. It's just a matter of being on the other end of it now.
And then he leads into "I can't believe they don't restrict speech and porn the way we do in my culture." In all honesty, fuck off. This is no better than someone being disgusted by western media showing bare female hair. The standards are subjective.