Should all Japanese directly address foreigners in Japanese ?

[hanbun]

thank you. I do agree that the japanese can be generous w/their time outside of the expat restaurant environment. I am not condemning anyone wholesale. And i think people (french, german, etc) can be just as difficult when encountered IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY. In this respect, i think all cultures are teh same. I AGREE. Also,what i am talking about is a face-to-face thing, not a limited online experience of japanese people - i am sure they are very nice.

BUT, I am just refering to something VERY SPECIFIC about my own experience in New York, which i believe highlights something xenophobic that is deep in the japanese character. If one comes to New York City, you I would expect they WANT to engage with the world and be around all kinds of diverse people. Otherwise, why come at all? I am not talking about conservative businessmen here; I am talking about "cool" downtown, seemingly liberal thinking young japanese people.

I thnk by shedding light on this, i am in my own small way, improving matters.

I want people reading this thread to know that I still love japan mostly b/c of the generosity of Japanese people while i was in japan. My experience w/the expats here in New York has been different b/c while i look like them, can communicate w/them, and share many cultural reference points there STILL seems to be an unbridgable void that separates me from them. I don't know why and i want to understand this more.

what more can i do than look like them, speak japanese (albeit not perfect) and love their food and culture? In many ways, and this is important, i think it is easier to be completely foreign to a japanese. That way the distinction is VERY clear and they know how to react. I am more difficult a case...there seems to be no room for nuance in the average japanese. Unforgivable, in my opinion in a city like New York!

how is that for provocation? will someone who is a japanese expat try to explain?

[Shineko]

thank you. I do agree that the japanese can be generous w/their time outside of the expat restaurant environment. I am not condemning anyone wholesale. And i think people (french, german, etc) can be just as difficult when encountered IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY. In this respect, i think all cultures are teh same. I AGREE. Also,what i am talking about is a face-to-face thing, not a limited online experience of japanese people - i am sure they are very nice.

Not only in their own country. Some of them really believe that they should get service in their own language outside of their own country, which is totally ignorant, or as a tourist they have the right behave badly etc. There are always reasons to go to other countries, for some its to learn the language and the culture, for some it is to have a break from their daily life etc.

I think anyone can be difficult in any country, if they do not want to adapt to the country they are in.

BUT, I am just refering to something VERY SPECIFIC about my own experience in New York, which i believe highlights something xenophobic that is deep in the japanese character. If one comes to New York City, you I would expect they WANT to engage with the world and be around all kinds of diverse people. Otherwise, why come at all? I am not talking about conservative businessmen here; I am talking about "cool" downtown, seemingly liberal thinking young japanese people.
I thnk by shedding light on this, i am in my own small way, improving matters.

It does not necessary mean that they are xenophobic, but did you consider that this Japanese person actually game to the United States to learn English? Especially young people, nowadays usually go to other countries to learn the language of the country.

Think about it, you see a Japanese person in United States and you see an opportunity to train your Japanese. Now turn the table around, a Japanese person sees a American in the US and sees an opportunity to train his/her English instead.

The fact that he preferred using English instead of Japanese makes the probability of him/her wanting to learn English rather high. If the person would have no interest in learning English, I doubt they would prefer to talk the language. I know this very well, as I hate Germans and their language over anything else, so I avoid talking it any time I can. Living in Germany does not make this easier at all, luckily I will get out of here soon.

[pipokun]

Unforgivable, in my opinion in a city like New York!

Just start a thread about it.
I simply think a restaurant is the place where you eat.
And it is good of you to think that one unforgivable personal experience could allow your generalization.

[Charles Barkley]

I think it is quite ironic that hanbun is complaining about not being able to use Japanese people for Japanese practice in America when one major point of the thread is that it is not ok for Japanese people to use Americans (and others) for English practice in Japan. Keep on fighting against that xenophobia there, hanbun.


I will chime in to say that this is by no means limited to Tokyo/areas where people are used to dealing with lots of tourists. I live in rural Tohoku and the same thing happens all the time. The worst incident for me was in Kamakura(I think) up in Akita. Went up there for a snow festival, and of course my group of friends (mix of ALT's and Japanese) included the only foreigners there. There was a sign near one of the food stalls, and I asked my Japanese friend who was standing about 10 feet away, in Japanese, if the sign referred to the catholic cross (i.e., what I later remembered to be 十字架, though I was initially mistaken, as the word in question was a name that contained 十　and 字）。

Some random Japanese man working at a food stall stepped in between us and began to repeat the word no, which he must have said 10 times, while waving his arms in according gesture. I moved to the side, so he wasnt blocking us, and asked my friend again, though this time I also asked what the sign actually did mean, but the man moved between us again and kept saying no (which at this point was no longer even answering my question). I then had to literally move directly next to my friend, turn my back on the man, and walk away before repeating the question, which he answered in about 5 seconds, satisfactorily, of course in Japanese. I was absolutely furious at that. And the most astonishing thing is that the man of course had initially understood my not entirely basic question, which I had asked in Japanese, yet that fact somehow slipped clear out of his mind.

From people asking Japanese friends sitting next to you whether you want the set with your order, to people repeating in English the same thing they have just said in Japanese every time they speak, even in tohoku people run the gambit in terms of pushing the buttons of a foreigner trying to learn Japanese (or simply trying to live without being condescended to). The cause, in my mind, is definitely a lack of familiarity with foreigners, which is understandable but nevertheless infuriating, especially since, unlike perhaps in Tokyo, I have run into a grand total of maybe 5 people during my two years here whose English is at the level of my still not all that great Japanese (and in that number I am not excluding the 7 Japanese teachers of English that I have worked with, as they comprise only 2 of the members of that list).

Having one's able Japanese ignored by another's able English is one thing--having one's able Japanese tossed aside to throw the conversation into shambles or endless, tautological greetings is another.

I am looking forward to finishing my role as a teacher, moving to tokyo, and responding to any English with either 'なんで英語で言うの’　or 'ごめん、英語が話せない’ Only 3 more months...