The Amazing Race

We've only had a few visitors to our place here in Osaka...OK, one (Steve. Hi, Steve!), but every one of our visitors has gone through the same process of adjustment that we did ourselves. After about a week in Japan, we reach a shocking, inescapable conclusion: "Holy cow, everyone here is Japanese!"

I realize we're not dealing in Pulitzer-quality reporting with this one, but it's something that takes a lot of getting used to, especially when you've grown up in a country as racially heterogeneous as the United States. Not that I deserve to pat myself on the back too much for that one -- I mean, West St. Louis County is about as white a place as you'll find in the U.S., second only to Kirksville MO (I met Kirksville's black guy, he's nice) -- but the important thing is that we were brought up with the assumption that we would eventually be interacting with members of other races besides Non-Hispanic Caucasian. There are several taboos you learn growing up in a racially-sensitive culture like the 21st century US, among them "don't generalize across an entire race," "don't assume things about cultures you don't understand," and perhaps #1, "don't do impersonations of other race's physical mannerisms or accents." Oh man does that go out the window after a few days in Japan.

In general, in the States, when you see any given person on the street, you tend to make the assumption that they are American. I realize this may be different in states with a greater influx of immigrants than Missouri or Kansas -- say, some kind of fictional, highly hyperbolic Orwellian state in which police and citizens were legally mandated to harass and demean people of Hispanic descent at every opportunity -- but until we hear someone speak, we have no way of knowing that they didn't grow up just down the road. Even if they're wearing a dashiki, sari, or viking helmet, they're still pretty likely to be an American in touch with their cultural roots.

Not so in Japan. A person of Western ancestry can grow up in Japan, understand Japanese culture, and speak accentless Japanese, but on the subway everyone, Japanese and foreigner, will assume that they are a tourist, a visitor, a gaijin. Which, of course, means that all of this nasty avoidance applies. In Japan, advanced grammar is defined around the in-group and out-group, and membership in the in-group is pretty much limited to Japanese people who look Japanese with only extremely rare exceptions. One of my coworkers at the kindergarten is married to a Japanese woman and has three biracial children, none of whom speak English. He laughingly told me about how whenever his 5-year-old on is asked "Are you a foreigner?", he bugs his eyes out and replies, "AAAAAAHHHHH!"

I'm not saying that Japanese race relations are bad or wrong (I would be expelled from the ranks of academia and Stuff White People Like if I did anything so culturally insensitive), just that people can say and do things that would be considered unacceptable in the U.S., stuff that I could never live with for more than a few years. At a meeting at work last week, this same coworker (whose Japanese is perfect, who has lived in Japan for the last 14 years, who has worked at this school for 5) was complimented for 10 minutes by the administration for translating a memo for the foreign staff. This happens at every meeting. Likewise, a Korean-American coworker is always introduced to parents and students with these two stunning facts: 1. he looks Asian, but he's not actually Japanese, and 2. even though he's Korean-American, he doesn't like kim chi! (The room erupts with people humming "Eeeehhh?", the national sound of impressed surprise). Just imagine how well this would go over at an assembly where the principal shockingly told the student body that their head teacher, Mr. Ramirez, doesn't like tacos.

Here's a fairly high-profile instance of this kind of institutionalized...let's call it racial insensitivity: meet Mr. James, McDonald's Japan's mascot for much of last year:

Cute, ain't he?

Mr. James loves McDonald's. Like, a lot. He's a dorky white guy who keeps a blog all about how much he loves McDonald's. In fact, to promote a line of "Big America" burgers, he appeared in advertisements all over subways, buses, and train stations proclaiming his love of Japan and of McDonald's, always only in katakana. I know we've gone into the difference between katakana, hiragana, and kanji before (trust me), but in short, katakana is used for borrowed words only. Communicating solely in katakana would mean acting like an illiterate, ignorant buffoon. The best analogy I've read would be if, to advertise a line of Asian food, McDonald's in America featured a schoolbus-yellow, kimono-clad Japanese man saying "Me likee McFlied Lice."

I guess to be fair, I'm a gaijin, I'm dorky, and I speak pretty terrible Japanese. But still, it's a rather unwelcome (if interesting) inversion for a white bread liberal like me: here, I'm not the majority, I'm not considered just a regular ol' guy. Here, I'm the oppressed, forgotten minority, the overlooked intrusion on other peoples' good days. Here, I'm the guy who gets to be offended by racially insensitive ads and TV depictions. Here, I'm considered exotic because I have curly brown hair without the use of toxic chemicals!

Remember, Japan is a culture based around preserving the wa -- the harmony of a setting or situation -- and to this end, people stay quiet, don't speak to strangers, don't dress appreciably differently from their peers or fellow subculture members, don't eat in public (this one's a sore spot), don't break the rules, don't make eye contact, don't sing in public, don't chew gum, don't talk on the train. Jenn and I violate the wa just by standing in a room, even if if we follow all of these unwritten rules.

For a more informed perspective on race in Japan (i.e., one containing actual facts), check out this article from the New York Times.