just got back from japan. omg wow.

[TheBlueHoney]

What a country! I saw much right there compared to Britain. 100x better infrastructure, friendlier people, safer street, luxury amazing looking roads, most well behaved children I've ever seen, modesty, people dress well, public transport etiquette, quality of food and healthy population, fantastic healthcare, longest life expectancy, lowest infant mortality, prices/affordability about same as London but get way more for your money everything better quality and no tipping culture, public bathrooms accessible everywhere and so clean and modern with built in tech. I could go on and on.

My sons 2 friends went this summer to stay with one of the friends grandparents who are Japanese.

The Japanese lad said he didn’t realise how racist Japanese people were. He usually goes with his parents and they’ve always spoken for him.

He said as an 18yr old who had to fend for himself when out and about as soon as he spoke they realised he wasn’t from Japan and although helpful and not rude, people would get up and move seats on buses and trains to avoid sitting next to the 2 lads. He said people would stare and move quickly to the side as if to avoid being touched.

He speaks some Japanese but not with a local accent as he was born and grew up in England.

My niece when and absolutely loved it but when I mentioned the above she said “Oh yes. They are very racist.”

This idea that Japan is really racist is in itself pretty racist. I know there is a running joke online about the “gaijin seat” on public transport but we didn't encounter that on our trip. I think a lot of that is caused by very different cultural norms around wearing scents in public.

The Japanese just don’t think about race the same way that we do. They may talk about race in ways that feel uncomfortable to those of us from multicultural western countries, but racially motivated violence and hate crimes are vanishingly rare. As a South Asian or black person you are a lot less likely to be beaten up by a group of racist thugs in Japan than in the UK.

There’s lots of videos on YouTube of street interviewers asking elderly Japanese people what they think of foreigners. From what I’ve seen there is very little serious hostility. Certainly nothing worse than you’d get by asking older British people on the street what they think of foreigners.

We'll go and live there if it's that great

Can we please stop minimizing racism. We can discuss the cultural reasons behind it, but let's not call it anything other than the plain old racism it is.

This.
Just to add, my friends went there 20 odd years ago and described many ordinary commuters sitting on trains reading the most gory, violent and sexually explicit comics. They brought some back to show us and we were stunned by the content especially when there's so much politeness going on everywhere else.
Its a fascinating country. I think I read that in addition to low birth rates arising from longevity and very restricted immigration, many young women of childbearing age don't have babies because of difficulty in getting on with their careers afterwards.

As a South Asian or black person you are a lot less likely to be beaten up by a group of racist thugs in Japan than in the UK.

About 10% of the British population is of black or Asian descent.

What's the % in Japan?

There’s lots of videos on YouTube of street interviewers asking elderly Japanese people what they think of foreigners. From what I’ve seen there is very little serious hostility. Certainly nothing worse than you’d get by asking older British people on the street what they think of foreigners.

I'm not sure videos with strangers asking random people on the street what they think of 'foreigners' are all that insightful.

The fact is that Britain is a multicultural country with hundreds of thousands of immigrants entering every year. That is not at all the case in Japan, and many are very happy to keep it that way.

Then you really should consider moving there.

I’m not minimising racism. I’m saying that labelling Japanese people en masse as racist is itself racist. It’s particularly galling from people who live in a country where thugs tried to burn asylum seekers alive in a hotel this summer. It implies that Japanese people are somehow more racist than British people when there is no evidence that hate crimes or racist violence is any more common there. Just because going to Japan might be the first time that a white person has experienced racism, doesn’t mean that racism in general is worse in Japan than here.

Do we need to measure racism in one country against racism in another? Of course there is racism here too. Of course every inhabitant of any country isn't racist. But there is racism in Japan. Pointing out that there is more violence elsewhere, doesn't make it untrue that there is racism in Japan. One doesn't cancel the other out.
My DH spent 2 weeks in Japan, he experienced more overt racism than he has in the 5 years he's lived in the UK. He's not white. I've never been to Japan, so perhaps he is wrong or lying I suppose.

Same. I travelled from Tokyo right out to Hokkaido but saw nothing but concrete and rice paddy fields. Very bleak Soviet style architecture. And if you're vegetarian and don't speak Japanese, you're basically fucked. Lovely people, so polite, but I nearly starved to death in the ten days I was there.

I don’t really see what difference that makes?

Are you saying that racist violence in the UK is somehow more justified here than it would be in Japan because the numbers of non-white people are higher?

Japan is not a multicultural place, but does multicultural mean an absence of racism? The US is far more multiethnic with higher per-capita immigration than here, does that make it less racist than the UK? France has a higher percentage of Muslims than the UK. You’d be a fool to think that makes it less Islamophobic.

Any attacks on asylum centres are reprehensible obviously.

But the fact is that the number of immigrants and asylum seekers in Japan is miniscule compared to Britain. Some Japanese are reluctantly coming around to the idea of allowing in more immigrants due to the plummeting birthrate, but it's not something society as a whole is welcoming of. Far from it. Even ethnic Koreans who speak perfect Japanese, and who have lived in the country for generations and are barely distinguishable from 'native' Japanese, suffer from discrimination.

There is certainly racism in Britain, as there is everywhere, but that is in the context of a country where a substantial proportion of the population are from non white and non British backgrounds. Whereas Japan is very nearly a monoculture, and many Japanese much prefer it that way. Which is their choice, obviously, but it's easy not to appear overtly racist when pretty much everyone you encounter is the same race and nationality as you.

Why did you nearly starve, you couldn't go to a konbini and buy onigiri or one of the other millions of options? Or a noodle bar and have miso noodles or omurice?

Wanting to keep your country culturally homogenous does not make you racist.

Are you saying that racist violence in the UK is somehow more justified here than it would be in Japan because the numbers of non-white people are higher?

See my post above.

There is no 'reason' for Japanese racists to attack migrants, because there are hardly any migrants.

My best friend moved there ages ago. Left a man and child behind only to stay there. So to stay and survive on their prices, she would find older Japanese men, one decided he is going to have boobs and eventually become a woman. It is not so straightforward in terms how amazing Japanese people are.

They have they very own culture which cannot be easily understood by westerners.

Also very small young schoolgirls going voluntarily to sleep with old men and other strange goings on

Absolutely not my experience at all. I was there for well over a week, and no one reacted like that, even when I went to quite a remote town. People were polite when we interacted but otherwise took no notice of us at all.

Do you think the same for the UK?

Maybe we could have done, but we spoke no Japanese at all, and couldn't read the ingredients or even explain that we were vegetarian. We went to the supermarket and even there were hard pushed to find anything that didn't have meat or fish in it. We should have prepared better, but didn't expect to find it so difficult. Not Japan's fault at all though.

Not taking that bait, I'm afraid. But if Japan wants to keep Japan for the Japanese, that's entirely their right, and we have no business judging them for it. Why should we impose our values on another country?

I knew as soon as I read the OP that the racist tropes would soon be trotted out in force. Sadly wasn’t wrong.

Fair enough, I am also vegetarian, but I love Japanese food.

My DC lives there. I was devastated at the distance but since visiting, I get it, 100%.

Why would it be 'bait'?

Why is it hard to answer. The only time I see comments like yours are on threads like this.

That's interesting. I wonder if the language is a barrier.