Wow! Where the hell have I been? How did I miss out on this thread? I love a good knock down, drag 'em through the mud, hair pulling debate. Gotta pay attention more! Glad to see things have chilled out a bit.
Wow! Where the hell have I been? How did I miss out on this thread? I love a good knock down, drag 'em through the mud, hair pulling debate. Gotta pay attention more! Glad to see things have chilled out a bit.
Do What You Love And You'll Never Work Another Day In Your Life!
I just read the article...I was shocked at some of the conclusions. I haven't spent much time in Japan (only 5 days) so I haven't been able to be inundated with the local population and the local culture. My only experience with people from Japan are my penpals and friends at Cornell - thus they are all inherently more open to foreigners and are interested in learning about the world.
One of my friends, who was an exchange student for a year at Cornell provided me with a great insight about the state of Japan's education system. He took a 20th century Japanese History course with me in his second semester - he said he learned more there than he ever had back in Japan. He always told me he felt secluded from the rest of the world in Japan. He said learning about Japan from an "outside" view gave him a whole new light about the history of his country. And he is by no means an (said with great disgression) 'average' japanese citizen: father swiss, mother taiwanese, has nearly perfect english (though he doesn't believe it) and went to school in Singapore for three years.
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maybe it's to ensure that "foreign" people don't lose face
don't know don't care
ditto asked about chopsticks -- this was from somebody i had taken to dinner at authentic (wood paper screens, etc) japanese resturant twice
asked also if i could read japanese - despite having emailed each other for six months
recently sent a gift to express gratitude for their hospitality -- constantly marvelling/expressing amazement that the card was written in japanese
maybe it's just having dealt with so many ignorant/uncaring/uninterested foreign people has desensitized?
dunno
don't care
but since it was bumped...
ttp://www.tcvb.or.jp/
What I dislike most with most of the Japanese with whom I have talked, is their way to assume that some things don't exist outside Japan, even when they are not typical Japanese things. Rather than ask whether we can find one thing in a particular country (e.g. "Is there soy sauce in Belgian supermarkets ?"), they just insinuate that there can't possibly be this thing outside Japan, usually saying "abroad" ("gaijkoku", "mukou"), rather than specifying the country. E.g. "there isn't soy sauce abroad, right ? It's a Japanese thing only". I have found this attitude prevalent when speaking in Japanese with a group of Japanese (less often, one to one).
Just before leaving Japan, I met 5 friends of my wife. As we were discussing moving to Belgium, they said we had better buy a garlic crusher as this was obviously only to be found in Japan. They also assumed that we would not be able to find soy sauce, nihonshu or Japanese rice in Belgium, and they asked my wife how she was planning to survive in such a "hostile" environment (they didn't actually say "hostile", but to the tone of their voice, it sounded like Europe was a vast jungle). My wife answered that we could find everything in the average Belgian supermarket, to their great surprise. What I hate is that they just assume that "Japanese things" cannot be found abroad, and even non-Japanese things which maybe they think are Japanese, like a garlic crusher.
In fact, I know that many daily objects are supposedly "Japanese" in the mind of many Japanese. That irritates me like nothing else. In 4 years in Japan I have had the time to hear such misconceptions about things that go beyond the imagination. Mad Pierrot's example "Is there McDonald in the US ?" is NOT too far fetched. I have met people who visibly thought that it was not obvious that there should be Xmas or New Year greeting cards, mobile phones or pasta in Europe (!).
Also just before I left Japan, I was having lunch with my in laws, and my nother-in-law worried that there may not be vegetable graters in Belgium. My step-father-in-law, an well-educated man, who has lived 7 years abroad, and whose son lives in the USA (where he goes for a few weeks every year), confirms that "graters are not common in Western countries" (!!). First of all, how could he speak for all Western countries when he has never been to Europe and only knows the US ? Then, he made a big mistake as vegetable/cheese graters were certainly not invented in Japan, and are very common in Belgium (of course, in such a cheese-loving country, every family has at least one of these ). I had to reassure my in-laws that we even had an electric multi-function grater that made fruit/vegetable juices, grated carrots and everything.
This attitude of pre-judging countries they don't know is what I call "prejudice". From my experience in Japan, the vast majority of the Japanese, regardless of their education and overseas experience, have deep prejudices against "abroad" ("gaikoku"). I am quite happy to have left Japan just so that I wouldn't hear such stupidities on a daily basis again. In fact, everytime I came back to Europe from Japan and talked about Japan with various people (family, friends, shopkeepers, civil servants...), none made such weird assumptions. None had seriously mistaken stereotypes about Japan. A few days ago, I spoke to a construction worker who came to my house for a reparation. I told him that I had just returned from Japan, and we started talking about it. He was not a very educated or cultivated man, but his stereotypes of Japan were basically correct : people eat sushi with chopsticks at a low table, bow to greet each others, are excessively polite and well disciplined.
A Japanese person would not have given an opinion of Belgium or any other country we were talking about. They would have asked whether there were sushi in that country, whether people could eat them, and assumed "no" for both. Rather than caring about how the other country looks like, they care about how much of Japanese culture is present there, and whether people there can behave like Japanese people. Why does it always have to be centered on Japan ? Why can't they just see the world without rating it according to how many Japanese products they can find there, and assume false things rather than ask questions when they don't know ?
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"What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?", Winston Churchill.
I bet both numbers would be higher in America.Originally Posted by Maciamo
(edit - just read the rest of the thread and it is true).
Last edited by Gaijin 06; Dec 5, 2005 at 09:11.
Actually, you're wrong again. Prejudice is simply an opinion or idea, formed by "pre-judging" someone or something.Originally Posted by Maciamo
The act of denying an alien an apartment to rent is discrimination.
You should really learn the difference between discrimination & prejudice, given how much you like using these two words.
Originally Posted by Gaijin 06
Actually, prejudice does lead to discrimation. The first time I experienced discrimination in Japan was my trip there in October. I was going to go to a nightclub in Ueno but the guy at the door said, "Sorry, Japanese only!" My thought was, "Hmmm, those guys at JREF were right."
Of course prejudice leads to discrimination, in the same way as drinking can lead to being drunk - however the two things are not the same
Many people have innate (cultural or personal) prejudices - some will consciously suppress them in order not to discriminate.
Oxford Dictionary defintion of prejudice :Originally Posted by Gaijin 06
1 preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or experience. 2 unjust behaviour formed on such a basis. 3 chiefly Law harm that may result from some action or judgement.
ORIGIN Latin praejudicium, from prae ‘in advance’ + judicium ‘judgement’.
This thread is not about discrimination at all, only about misconceptions and prejudices. Learn to read.
Hi Maciamo!
I'm glad that you have made a choice hopefully for the best. Obviously you and Japan had irreconcilable differences, and the best thing was probably to say good-bye.
Please try not to be too bitter! I hope you can turn your mental accuities to something else more positive!
This article made me think of "Little Britain" : "Unlike other countries, Britain has people of two genders : women, and men !"
I like 美人ネス
i was called "chites" once on another forum which i later learned i meant whites who want to be Japanese..and it is a races term.
the funny thing is: who ever said i am a Caucasian ???
even though i am white..i am Arabian...
that is a misconception..not every white skin man is an american
"Foreigners can't speak or understand Japanese well." Wow do I hate that one.
Japanese people tend to have a thought about foreigners as stupid and uneducated.
Japanese who have never visited outside of Japan, think that all foreigners are less smarter than ordinary Japanese people.
MSG is one popular food flavoring-enhancer among many Chinese,they also think it's " Chinese "
In fact,it's a Japanese invention.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate
Ignorancy has no national boundary.People are indoctrinated by education & media to some degree,also own prejudices.
That is true to an extent, but some concepts held by Japanese tend to be more widely held than in most other cultural groups I have met. Americans that haven't traveled abroad still tend to think the US is the best place to live. Those of us who have seen outside have different opinions, depending on where you live.
I think other nationalities tend to ask more questions than educated Japanese do, and not assume so much. Can't dismiss it by the number who travel (a lot of japanese have a passport), but when they travel, do they really see?
[QUOTE=Maciamo;180694]Great post. It's a little scary to hear all this, but I experience this in the US as well.Originally Posted by corocoro
Though, thinking about it, the US is a little better, well the parts I grew up in, since it was a melting pot. I grew up in NYC, and it's filled with people from all over the place, speaking their native language.
Though, I get a little anxious, when I hear these brainwashed Americans are all "support the troops", anti-Iraq or any country we are at war with...
Raising the Flag, patriotism, is all a little too scary for me and result in hate-crimes.
In the end, you have to find the right people, who will accept you for who you are.
Even if I've been to Japan for a very short time, there are some of those things I have experienced, for example the all foreigners are American thing. It was really weird since my looks are not quite American, because I'm half Turkish!
Wow very interesting article.
The sad thing is, Half of these were actually told to me over skype by this stupid English chick that is a foreign exchange student in Japan. She is delusional she really soaked up the Japanese culture I guess?
And on the 4 season thing, so? I am fine living in California where our seasons are Spring, Summer, Summer, Fall.
But, I on the otherhand am not sure how I would be affected by discrimination. I tend to laugh it off and not think much of it because I am a white American all I get discriminated for is for political views or just because I AM white. It's all irrational crap.
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