Comments on: The “gaijin” myth

By: Doug 陀愚

Doug 陀愚 — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:24:29 +0000

Hi Jonj,

I had the same experiences that reading about a country and going there were two different things. It happened when I went to Vietnam, Ireland and Japan.

Basically if you really make an effort to respect local laws and customs, stay out trouble and pay attention to people around you, you’ll survive just fine.

By: JonJ

JonJ — Sun, 29 May 2011 21:06:38 +0000

The first time I went to Japan, in the late ’70s, I studied up on the country beforehand, and thus learned that a foreigner would find, in every store she or he entered, that the salespeople would scurry around looking for the one employee who spoke a little English. But what I experienced was that all the salespeople I encountered expected me to speak Japanese; if I couldn’t, that was my problem. (I also learned that I would be living in what amounted to a human ant-hill, choking constantly on the polluted air. Both of these “facts,” of course, turned out to be completely untrue.)

In all my experience there, I have always been treated either quite graciously or just matter-of-factly, as just another human being (granted, a somewhat too-large human being), and have never experienced the stereotyped “外人” treatment (except from a few kids, of course, but these days even they tend to be rather blasé about foreigners). I understand that the real problem, though, is encountered by Asian-Americans, or Asian-Europeans, who don’t know Japanese. Since they look Japanese but can’t speak the language, they run the risk of being treated as mentally handicapped.

By: Doug 陀愚

Doug 陀愚 — Tue, 24 May 2011 19:05:24 +0000

Hi Everyone:

Cocomino: 外国人は客としてちゃんと行動したほうがいいと思います。僕は原宿や渋谷など、変な外国人見たことがありまして、恥ずかしくなりました。人間として、外国人と日本人は責任がありますよね。Sorry if that is wrong Japanese.

Ragnar: welcome to the JLR! Glad you found it useful.

Robert: Too right. I’ve seen some bad treatment of foreigners in the US, which can be downright hostile. I think you’re attitude about the whole thing of living abroad is quite right and something we can all learn from.

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 24 May 2011 16:25:00 +0000

the term gaijin has never bothered me, but I’ve never heard it with any malice. (My Japanese friends and family must be cruder as I’ve never heard them use gaikokujin.) The weirdest I’ve encountered is some druken salarymen calling out gaijin-san when they spotted me. By and large I feel very at home in Japan, and have been dealt with nicely at all levels, which is more than I can say for the treatment of minorities in the UK. Maybe I’d feel different if I lived there instead of visited, but I’m under no illusions that my privileged white male status would have any merit in Japan.

(As I’ve been an immigrant for most of my adult life, I’m a gaijin everywhere, even in my homeland.)

By: Ragnar

Ragnar — Tue, 24 May 2011 14:34:18 +0000

Great article, really! And it’s really so obvious that I’ve never even thought of it like that – just as you say, living in a foreign country, any foreign country, makes you foreign and that’s just that, nothing you can do about it. Except how you think of it or “take it.”

And I really like the last two sentences – there’s something about buddhism that so very much intrigues me – I think I should look into it.

By: cocomino

cocomino — Tue, 24 May 2011 13:41:05 +0000

We have to feel responsible for our attitude.
特に、日本は島国なので排他的なところがあり、何でも
自分たちで解決しようとします。
ちょっと、長い日本語なのですが、この記事がおもしろかったです。
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Chikirin/20110524