Hehe that is a ncie story....in a way.

It would seem you are fluent in Japanese from your journal, I would be slightly concerned to talk to them if my Japanese was poor incase I accidently insulted them.

It is really the bigdaikon stories that got me, the school officials not wanting to give the JETs a decent place to live (no hot water!?) and the police and security guards being quite aggresive and insulting and general things like that.

Hopefully if I was walking along a street and some Uyoku decided to drive past they would not all jump out and attack me.

Back to yakuza, the only time I get to see them is generally through the media, films, anime, manga etc, quite often there seem to be "good" yakuza who are more samurai like and normally the old ones, and then you have the young punk yakuza that like to think they own the place and abuse everyone.

Budha Smoker how did you come start talking to the yakuza? And also as you have lived in Japan for so long, what kind of racism have you encountered?

Am I blind or is there no edit button?

I wanted to add: I would never expect racism from a department store, they are just so huge you would expect them to encounter alot of gajin, and also be part of a chain that needs to keep a good reputation. You would expect a complaint and the racist person to be fired if it was in the USA or UK.

At least with a bar it is probably privately owned, I think I am worrying too much, I won't be in Japan for at least another 3 years.

I really do hope that when I get placed (JET) I have a fellow JETer nearby and not be off in the middle of no where with no english speaking contacts.

Weird...looks like my messages got merged.