Now that I’m back from Hawaii, I finally had the chance to wade through all the emails I decided to ignore until now (sorry if that was you!). A decent number of them were people worried about racism in Japan; mainly, they were worried that people in Japan would treat them poorly because they were, well, gaijin (that means foreigner, in case you didn’t know).

A few of these emails made reference to the infamous “no gaijin” signs which are supposedly littered all around Japan. When I searched around the internet for more information on this, I was surprised with what I found…

Well, actually, not that surprised.

First off, it’s not that bad. In fact, it’s the opposite. There is so much talk going around the gaijin world about anti-gaijin sentiment, or the “no gaijin allowed” signs…thankfully, a lot of this talk is done by people who don’t know much about Japan, or have never been there. A few rumors have spread around, they’ve gotten bigger, and people pass the word on until it becomes a bigger monster.

Now, I’m not saying that racism isn’t a problem in Japan. In fact, where isn’t it an issue? As a gaijin, you will stand out, and in a country that is 99% Japanese, you will be interesting and people will be interested. Does that mean people will treat you poorly? No, not necessarily. Will you get a lot more attention than if you were Japanese? Definitely.

I found a couple vides via JapanProbe the other day. I thought they were absolutely hilarious, though it seems as though JapanProbe’s commentors thought it was pretty insensitive and mean. I can’t help it, though, I’m a Dave Chappelle fan.

And commercial #2

This sort of moves me into my next topic: “No Gaijin Allowed” signs.

If you search for “No Gaijin Allowed” in Google, you’d probably expect to come up with a bunch of hits. If you search for it in an image search, maybe you’d expect tons of “no gaijin” signs chained onto restaurant doors (so that those dirty gaijin can’t rip them off and steal them). Instead, I found almost nothing. My normal Google search consisted of “No Gaijin Allowed” tshirts, and the image search came up with things that had nothing to do with anything. I wasn’t too shocked, though, I did expect to see more.

The reason for this? Those signs aren’t really that prevalent. I’ve been all over Japan, and I try to go to as many different places as I can. I have not once seen a sign like this. When reading about people’s experiences who have seen these signs, they explain that these signs don’t necessarily mean “No Gaijin Allowed.” Instead, they mean “We don’t want any trouble from Gaijin, so be respectful” or “We can’t speak English, and we don’t want to be bothered with body communication.”

Still, there is some anti-gaijin sentiment. I’m not denying that. Gaijin don’t always make a good name for themselves, and the few bad apples ruin it for everyone. Since gaijin stand out so much in Japan, one misbehaving gaijin can make all gaijin look bad. Every once in a while a story like this will come out. On top of this, there is some bad blood between the older generation that fought in the war and anyone not Japanese. Even that is turning around though, and I’ve never had a bad experience with someone of the older generation. Still, I can see some potential problem. On the other hand, our War veterans sometimes have bad feelings about Japanese, so it’s not like it’s any different.

Anyways, I just wanted to say that the “anti-gaijin” mentality isn’t as prevalent as a lot of people think. Japan’s a friendly place, and as long as you try to keep in mind that you are in another country, and you need to follow some of their cultural guidelines (like taking off your shoes, damnit!), you shouldn’t have any trouble. If you don’t make an effort, though, and think that you can get away with anything…well…then you might get some anti-gaijin sentiment. I warned you, though.

So what about you? Have you ever had any experience with this?

[Image source]

As much as I want to be outrageously snarky in this post, I don’t think I can bring myself to do it. After all, social anxiety disorder is pretty serious stuff, especially in Japan, the birthplace of the hikikomori (引き籠もり or “pulling away”) phenomenon. In an attempt to help out those who are uncomfortable in social situations, Avex has introduced a DVD titled Miterudake (ミテルだけ) or “Just Looking”. The DVD is labeled as “interactive”, but there are really only two activities that users are expected to perform:

1. Choose one of fifty relatively-diverse women

2. Endure them staring at you for about a minute (eyes up, boys)

Click here to view the embedded video.

3. Repeat (does this count as an activity?)

So basically, the only purpose of the DVD is, as its creator states, 「人と目を合わすこと」, or to help people “adapt to others”. As weird and pointless as it may seem, I can’t deny that there are people out there who do have a major fear that they’re constantly being judged by others. Still, I think it might be more cost effective to just realize that most people aren’t actually staring at you in real life (especially not in Japan, where a lot of “normal” people still find sustained direct eye contact to be rude) than to go and buy a $25 DVD. Or you could just find a picture of the Mona Lisa.

But hey, whatever floats your boat. I’m certainly not one to tell other people how to manage their neuroses. One thing I can say for sure about this DVD, though, is that it’s bound to act as inspiration for many x-rated spin-offs. You just wait and see–in the next few months, scores of new AV DVDs will hit shelves of sketchy Akihabara porn shops with similar premises and similar titles (“Just ____ing”). Come on, it’s Japan. You know it’s true.

Anyway, sorry this article was a bit boring. To make up for the lack of entertaining sarcasm, here are some links to more Miterudake clips and spoofs on the Youtube and NicoNico Douga. You can also find more clips on the Miterudake website (as well as links to the personal blogs of some of the women, which is kind of creepy).

EDIT: It turns out Miterudake could be a lot weirder than I first thought.

EDIT 2: Here’s a video from Koichi. Thanks, Ko.

You know, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but sometimes it’s my job. If you’ve ever used your Japanese with a Japanese person, you know how impressed…they seem. You say something (anything, even if it’s only vaguely Japanese) and they will respond with ecstatic claps, squeals of joy, and “jyouzu jyouzu sugoi jyouzu” over and over like a broken record.

Gosh, I really don’t want to do this, but I thought you should all know the truth. Here’s what Japanese people actually think about your Japanese:

Now, I don’t want to get you down. I don’t want to uninspire you. It’s not your fault. You can blame the philosophers, the “intellectuals”, and the cultural anthropologists of the Japanese post-war era. Most of the blame can be put on them, amongst others.

You see, there is this thing called Nihonjinron, which basically means “Theory of the Japanese (people).” Right after World War II, Japan was feeling particularly sad. They had just lost the war, and they were being occupied by the Americans. Nihonjinron was this big thing that came along that helped separate the Japanese from the threat of western cultural influence. Nihonjinron is full of bogus theories that make the Japanese unique from everyone else.

Although there are a ton of Nihonjinron theories out there, here are a few of the more ridiculous ones, for your enjoyment:

1. Japanese evolved from a separate set of primates, which makes them unique (and, to some, superior).
2. Japanese have a special “masculine and feminine” that makes them unique. They believe that this feminine form of language came from thousands of years ago. Although it was proven that feminine language only came into existence in the Meiji Era, most Japanese still believe in this, and are taught this in school.
3. Japanese brains are different from non-Japanese brains. More on this in the next point.
4. And finally, the one that has to do with this article: The Japanese language is so unique that only people with specially developed (Japanese brains) can hope to ever be able to understand it and speak it. And this is why…

Japanese people aren’t actually impressed with your Japanese. Well, I shouldn’t say that. They are impressed, but mostly because they never expected you to be able to speak any Japanese in the first place.

Japanese people think they are very unique. They think that they are the most unique and homogenized culture on earth. It is prejudice like this that causes them problems when it comes to internationalization.

So now, if you’ve ever wondered why Japanese people are so impressed by the littlest bits of Japanese, now you know. Don’t get discouraged, though! I’m not saying your Japanese is bad. It’s hard to become perfect. I mean, look at Japanese people who try to speak English. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a native Japanese person develop “perfect” Engrish. It’s tough both ways…though, I suppose the difficulty in English is probably due to the fact that only big Caucasians (who of course have bigger, specialized brains) can comprehend the vastness of the English language. Amerikajinron, anybody?

*disclaimer: This, of course, isn’t to say that every Japanese person thinks like this. This is just one explanation to the “why Japanese praise people speaking Japanese so much” theory.