What Racism Is — and Isn’t — in Japan
Reflections from fifty years as a “visible minority” — and why I don’t call it racism
I’ve long read and heard about how the Japanese discriminate against people who look different from them, especially “visible minorities”.
As I am clearly a visible minority, here are some of my reflections and experiences during the years I’ve lived in Japan, 1975 to the present.
The majority of the time I’ve lived here has been in a village, or small town. I imagine the experience of foreigners who live in the great metropolis Tokyo, for example, might be significantly different from my own.
In the places I’ve called home in Japan, if you follow the rules for putting out your garbage, and participate in community obligations like cutting roadside weeds, it could be said your outward appearance causes no particular problems.
Still, it would be unusual, and highly unlikely, if I’d never had a negative experience regarding my observable physical characteristics.
Like the time a shopkeeper came out from behind the counter as I was about to pay, caught up a bunch of my hair, which was in dreadlocks, in her hands and, while holding it, looked at the woman I was with, and, addressing her, said: “Is this real?”
The woman I’d gone to the store with, a fellow volleyball mom (we’d just dropped off a carload of junior high girls at a local tournament), duly mortified, was completely speechless. After all, what could she have answered?
“I too am curious. Why don’t we ask the person to whom the hair belongs?”
I took the shopkeeper’s hand by the wrist, removed it from my hair and said in a voice as cold as Arctic ice: “It’s real. Don’t touch it.”
I wasn’t sure if this woman had lost her mind or just her manners. Although I am not capricious in attributing bad intentions to anyone, I will not tolerate poor behavior. Talk about being impolite, I call that kind of behavior rude and offensive. I’d also call that woman ignorant, insensitive, and inconsiderate. No matter how different I may look, I am not an inanimate object.
I would not, however, call this woman a “racist.” That’s the term an American man I know used when I told hm this story. No, it wasn’t a “racist” act. It was a stupid one.
Any foreign child can go to any public school anywhere in Japan. If they could not, if they were prevented from attending because of their skin color, and because they were deemed an “inferior race” — I’d call that racism.
If it required armed officers of the law to ensure these children could go to school unmolested, as was once the situation in the country of my birth — the United States of America — they would clearly be victims of racism. It’s almost hard to believe now that there was a time when American children were harassed, threatened, intimidated, physically and verbally abused, simply trying to go to school.
Racism systematically and effectively shuts out and excludes persons or groups from the social, educational, and economic mainstream.
When this system is forcibly maintained by tradition, and institutionalized by law, it is oppression.
My four children, born and raised in rural Japan, never had a foreign friend, playmate, or classmate when they were growing up here. They were always the only foreign children in their schools and our neighborhood. (Nanao, the eldest, was born in Denmark.)
This did not present any significant problems. Although it seems young children desire nothing more than to be like their friends — and have no desire to stand out, by looks, language, or anything else.
One day my second daughter, Mie, then in fourth grade, came home in tears, saying a boy in her class had said something mean to her regarding her [brown] skin color. I do not remember what he said, but recall it was offensive enough for my husband to report it to the principal.
The very following day, the boy’s mother, with her son in tow, (I noted he was dressed in a white collared shirt) came to our door. Bowing deeply in apology (and she was practically in tears), she offered me a flower bouquet, and a gift. I, keenly aware she was upset, bowed in return, as I accepted her apology, along with her gift of small cakes.
No ill feelings. As far as I was concerned, the matter was finished. No harm done, there was no victim here. I thought of it as a lesson. Our daughter learned we would not let any act of bullying or offensive behavior go unaddressed. The boy would learn how he brought distress and embarrassment to his family and his school. As well as shame, a powerful deterrent to poor behavior in Japanese society.
There was an incident a some years ago in Japan when racism was charged in a civil suit against a shopkeeper who did not want a Brazilian woman in his jewelry store. The woman, who filed a discrimination lawsuit, and won — as well she should have — was described by a foreign journalist as “the Rosa Parks of Japan.”
Rosa Parks? Surely not the same Mrs. Rosa Parks, revered by Americans and people of conscience worldwide, for her courage and principled stance in literally sitting down while standing up to injustice. She succeeded in galvanizing a nation in challenging hundreds of years of oppression and institutionalized racism, protected by law, in the most powerful country on earth. That Rosa Parks? I don’t think so.
I agree with you that the behaviors aren’t “racist,” per se, but are more extreme examples of othering. The incident with the shopkeeper grabbing your hair is beyond belief. I’ve heard of similar incidents reported by foreigners living in Japan — one white female resident of 20+ years had her breast grabbed on the train by an older female Japanese passenger who “wanted to know if it was real”. The objectification and dehumanization of foreigners in Japan (by an ignorant few) is deplorable… but here in the U.S. the treatment of immigrants is equally, if not more, deplorable… and more widespread! You are a pillar of patience to have dealt with these incidents you’ve shared.
As a long-time resident, I tucked into this fully expecting I'd have to mount my high horse. Instead, I found myself in complete agreement.
There is a difference between -- as you say -- bad behavior and racism. There is also, I'd argue, a difference between curiosity about the unfamiliar and racism. Once upon a time a Japanese woman asked me if I used shampoo or soap on my chest hair. She commented about the fact I didn't have a trash can in my tiny one-room apartment. I told her that foreigners don't generate trash.
We'll celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary next year.
I think it's critically important to look not just at behavior, but intentions. And I see a lot less racism here than I do back in the US.
Thanks for sharing this excellent piece.