Racism in Japan: A Long and Proud Tradition

Ah, c'mon, Momus, Pizza is good.

Back to the question, can we agree that statements branding entire nations of people 'racist' are themselves racist? How about statements that you hate a whole race of intellectuals? My remarks against the west were, on the other hand, anti-imperialist and a tad foodist.

Racism in Japan ain't much of a long and proud tradition: the most overtly racist opinions voiced in Japanese culture tend to be derived from Western thought during certain periods where ideas from Europe and the US were being taken up most assiduously by the Japanese. They tend to be a hangover from what you could call Western cultural imperialism - racial theories from the late/nineteenth/early twentieth century, for example, which saw white people as superior, black people as inferior, and asians therefore as somewhere in the middle. Kipling's problem with the Japanese was that 'one really never knew whether they were natives or sahibs': the Japanese didn't know either, and they essentially demoted themselves to the position of a second-class race for a great many years (just as their intellectuals had considered the Japanese a second-class people when compared to the classical Confucianist Chinese up until the early nineteenth century). Or the use of rangaku ('Dutch learning') in the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, valued for its greater understanding of, say, anatomy or agricultural method, and the fairly abysmal understanding of human cultures that came with it taken as equally valid.

Ian Buruma's written some interesting things on Japanese attitudes to Jews: since most of the Japanese writers who repeated Western (pre-nineteen-thirties) ideas about Judaism and the 'Jewish race' had never met a Jew, they had little opportunity to compare their received ideas with reality.

Japanese racism against Koreans and Chinese, meanwhile, only became a cultural factor in the last eighteenth century, while being balanced against pan-Asianism among both intellectuals and government, and reached its heights very late, in maybe the thirties - the Yon-sama boom is not going to make it go away, but is at least a good sign. And attitudes towards the Ainu and Okinawans seem to be changing from the previous position of 'adapt to 'Japaneseness' or be ignored', thankfully.

Japan suffers from the image of itself as a homogenous society: Nihonjinron, writing about 'Japaneseness', tends to make a sweeping generalisation about What The Japanese Are Like (including spurious connections to a false tradition, eg claiming that the bonuses-by-time-spent-in-company 'lifetime employment' system which is rather dying out now is part of the great familial structure of all Japanese relations rather than something invented during the '50s boom to keep workers with company-specific training from being lured away by better pay), invent a false binary, and attribute that to the rest of the world. I don't know whether that sort of national chauvinism counts as racism, but. It exists.

This is not an intellectual theory, this is a social and practical reality. A Japanese friend of mine, living in London, told a friend of hers about a 'gaijin' she had met the other day, who happened to be a Brit. Nothing special you may say - but that is no different from a Frenchman, say, living in Tokyo, and referring to a Japanese as a 'foreigner' in the same way they might of a Swede or a German, and even that is assuming they used such an arbitrary generalising word as 'foreigner' for 'those-who-aren't-us'. And I for one have no truck with over-sympathetic intellectualising over why that may be, ie: oh, their values are different and their one-ness is what makes them so special blahdiblah.

Equally, I for one have had several first-hand experiences of how difficult it is to break the barriers of Japanese stubborn-ness as to 'them and us', though I will admit that it can have its advantages at times, if you are willing to play the foreign fool.

Photos of places which refuse non-Japanese in Japan. This type of discrimination is legal in Japan.

Personally, I don't consciously experience racism in Japan because I'm either mistaken for being Japanese or I receive positive discrimination for being a Western foreigner. But I am quite conscious of the privilege I enjoy when mistaken for being Japanese: I don't experience half the hassle that hakujins (whites) encounter, and I'm sure I must have it ten times better than gaijins with dark skin.

On a tangent, I don't think Momus ever replied to my criticism of his "morality of high-density living" praise -- that he wouldn't say that living in crowded urban areas is great if he had to take insanely packed cattle cars (known as rapid commuter trains) every goddamn weekday during rush-hour(s) in Tokyo.

Nick Currie's article in praise of Japan's (positive orientalism?) was re-published on a different arm of Metropolis Magazine. The usual discussion on JapanToday forums is often tiresome, but I think the first 25 or so posts in response to Currie's article were OTFM:

http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=comment&id=712&display=all

The Japan Today article irritates because, for one thing, the "Europe says integrate and lose original culture; Japan respects the Otherness of the Other" claim is utter bollocks. Many Japanese may enjoy the otherness of the other, but if you wish to be a Japanese citizen you have to integrate, an integration, to use Momus' phrasing, "verging on compulsory assimilation". I'm pretty sure there's no way you can hold dual citizenship in Japan (a friend of mine is currently trying to find ways around it). A lot of third-generation Korean-Japanese, resident in Japan as their families have been, haven't got Japanese citizenship or the rights that come with it, because that means giving up on being Korean.

I just did. I was actually discussing some of these cases with the academic who invited me to Hokkaido, Lehan, yesterday. I see the court case against the gaijin-barring onsens as a good example why gaijin should be banned from Japan. The guy who mounted the case is a foreigner who changed his name to a Japanese-sounding name and gets furious when people relate to him as a foreigner. Yet his litigiousness is very un-Japanese. It's also pretty ineffective. The court case resulted, as I understand it, in judges acknowledging that onsens shouldn't discriminate, but saying that they couldn't force local law-makers to enforce any rules. Luckily a few of the 'racist sentos' have relented of their own accord.

I actually bathe in sentos a lot and have never been refused anywhere. Here in Hokkaido Russian sailors are known as trouble-makers, but I'm sure I'll never see a Japanese establishment of any kind with bouncers who spray mace in an unruly customer's face, as I've seen happen in Paris. I also seem to remember my anti-censorship arguments on ILX being countered with the metaphor that ILX is like a pub or club, and has the right to bar entry, demand a certain dress code, etc etc. Not that I agreed with that, mind you, but I find it interesting that people habitually defend exclusionary practises like that at home, but not abroad.

On the high density living thing, I can tell you that the early/late cattle car situation in Tokyo is paradise compared with this small Hokkaido town I'm living in, where dismal public transport infrastructure (no underground, poor bus service) means that everyone is forced to buy a car, the roads are overcrowded, pavements hardly exist, and there's a constant battle, in icy and snowy conditions, between pedestrians and cars for the very limited space on the narrow roads. The density is lower here, which means the town is spread out and everything is drive in. Most unusual for Japan, and most unpleasant... and immoral.

Okay, I'll read those comments after my article now. The gaijin readers of Metropolis are a bunch of mad rabid dogs, though. I don't expect much sense from them.

Maybe you should move.

Non-Japanese is not a skin colour.

I find Japanese cultural particularity extremely admirable. Watching TV this evening, for instance, I didn't see a single non-Japanese face all evening. I saw Japaneseness being 'performed' for a Japanese audience in the form of travelogues and internal tourism puffs -- basically one programme after another in which Japanese couples and families went to visit hot springs, ride skidoos, admire ice sculptures, and, of course, sample Japanese cuisine, exclaiming 'oishi!'

The reason I find this remarkable and admirable is that in the country I was born and brought up in, the TV mostly showed images of another country, the US. What's more, it mostly showed situations of crime and conflict rather than the sensuality and beauty on display in a typical evening's viewing in Japan. If I imagine a Scotland in which Scots were as in love with being Scottish as Japanese are in love with being Japanese, I must say I find it a lovely picture.

And as far as I can tell from his writings, he generally only gets furious when people relate to him as a foreigner when it shows up the prejudice it reveals, and the obvious hypocrisy of it.

Are you suggesting he (a Japanese citizen, right?) should integrate? Behave more 'Japanese', so he'll get on better? Maybe by mounting that court case he's giving them the chance to appreciate his otherness.

(I'm not very fond of Debito, myself, though I do like how he describes himself as 'Tom Cruise-ish'. I bet he just keeps meeting Japanese who tell him he looks like Tom Cruise! so it must be true!)

Gee, how admirable. If you refuse to acknowledge this as racism you have to at least admit that you're advocating a level of nationalism that you wouldn't tolerate from say, the US.

Actually, while Japan in general is very much ignoring American culture at present, a sizeable minority of Japanese are currently very interested in black (and only black) American culture. Hip hop is huge here just now. I'm living in a house belonging to a Japanese couple currently in Okinawa. All the records and videos in their house are about or by black Americans. Okinawa happens to be the place in Japan where they'll find the most 'authentic' black American culture. Perhaps that's why they're there.

the "taishuu" of Russian Sailors could possibly be quite extraordinary to people who are not used to BO......

Well, it's all relative. But, having travelled a lot in Asia, I'm very struck by how it's only in Japan that western culture has been kept at bay. And I think that's because Japan is narcissistic, but also because it's rich and proud. Poor people have to live with other people's taste, but the rich can actually sit down with an architect and an interior designer and get what they want, discover who they really are.

Personally, I'm not so eager to write off racism/cultural elitism in the US, Japan, or anywhere else. And I'm not sure if I would say that the insular cultural myopia of Japan and the US is totally a bad thing - MOST cultures around the world are like this, wouldn't you say? It seems sort of ridiculous to demand cultures to be tremendously interested in bits of foreign culture that aren't relevant to their daily lives. I would say that Americans are about as interested in foreign cultures as the Japanese are - we pick and choose and fetishize and integrate it into our own context. Japanese kids getting into "authentic black hip hop" isn't tremendously different from all the 20something white girls that I know who go nuts for Japanese import fill-in-the-blank.

I don't think most Americans expect the Japanese to be racist, and I get the sense that that is what motivated the first post in this thread.

This I agree with. I think this is also key to why a lot Americans relate to Japanese culture but not so much other poorer Asian nations.

Okay, yeah, but I'm sure that Strom Thurmond would've said the same thing about segregation in the 50s.

There's a lot of reasons for different types of racism in the US that really don't have all that much to do with the policy of the US government post-WWII. Your cultural imperialism thing seems kinda flimsy - "if you have money and power, you can't be a bastard, but if you're smaller/poorer, then by all means engage in morally dubious behavior..."

So you've actually had to ride crowded commuter trains at 8 am in the Tokyo metropolitan area with some regularity (say, every weekday for a 3 month period continually)? Judging from your hyperbole (paradise), I guess you actually haven't had to do so.

I don't disagree with you that your transport situation in Hokkaido is dismal, but I also don't think you are qualified to compare it earnestly to my daily commute. Granted, since I don't live where you do and haven't been in such a situation for longer than a month, I'm not qualified to say that your transport situation is worse than mine.

I don't own a car, nor do I want to. I agree that access to safe, reliable public transport is a feature of a good civilization.

I would much rather walk or ride bicycle to work, but I am forced to take trains because of the housing discrimination against foreigners in Japan. Although I am a professional contracted to work at a university, I could find no place within walking/biking distance of the uni willing to rent to a foreigner, even with a Japanese guarantor. There is lots of housing around the campus, but it's just not available to foreigners.

It must be easier to romanticise Japan's "orientalism" when you're never around long enough to suffer the consequences of it.

Your position as a visiting foreigner who doesn't (I assume) have to endure the daily kind of commute most ordinary Tokyo residents have to makes your romanticism about crowded urban conditions laughable to me.

And, of course, I and my coworkers are Western foreigners, we are not Korean or Chinese which brings a host of whole other bullshit. My mind was blown last week, when I read the headline "Promotion just for Japanese" in the Japan Times. I mean... seriously.

Not to mention Japan's instantaneous deportation of U.N. recognized Kurdish refugees to the country of their persecution for no real reason I saw articulated.

I love Japan. I have experienced hospitality and generosity here as I never have before, and I have nothing but respect and admiration for virtually everyone I have met here. But to be totally honest, IMO things can and do happen here that are bureaucratic, contradictory, and unfair in a way that completely boggles my Western mind. I think there is very real racism in Japan, but it is usually subtle and often not even malevolent. But what really blows my mind is not the racism itself, but rather the degree to which it is accepted and even institutionalized. I think racism in America is much, much worse in many ways, but at least we have enforceable laws to protect us, and most of the general public recognizes at least overt racism as unacceptable and something that should be changed.

I agree with Laura's post.

I have never experienced what I would call overt racism. I am annoyed by the assumptions people constantly make about me based on my race. I am also made to feel like an outsider frequently.

However, I believe this kind of insulting behavior is the result of ignorance and awkwardness, not malice.

I also think that many foreigners feel insulted in certain situations, because they don't have the language ability and cultural sensitivity to understand what's actually happening.

I had a class the other day dealing with words of obligation-- have to, must, don't have to, etc. I made up an exercise to use those terms to talk about the cultural differences between America and Japan, e.g. "In Japan, you have to take off your shoes in the house. In America, you don't have to."

One of the suggestions on the handout had to do with bathing and showering. I was really shooting for the whole washing outside the bath, not emptying the water thing, but one of my students paused for a moment, and then looked up at me and said, "In Japan, you have to take baths and showers." Then he looks up at me quizzically, and says, "In America, you don't have to."

I almost died; it was the funniest thing ever. I mean, I could've been offended, but why? He didn't mean any harm and it gave me a Teachable Moment. I think you can really dispel a lot of misconceptions and stereotypes once someone gets to know you.

I agree. It is tedious to read the posts at Japantoday.com which are unrelentingly anti-Japan and anti-anything different from home. It is boring to have someone in a group of foriegners spoil the evening by insisting on "discussing Japan", especially in a removed, detached manner as if one is studying a breed of insect.

Nevertheless, some things are worth standing up for, and discrimination of the kind Momus excuses exists, really sucks, and should not be tolerated.

He's chosen the wrong side of this one.

KAWAI!!!!!!!

I find it hard to believe you were refused entry at an Internet cafe because you are a foreigner. Are you sure it wasn't closing time there wasn't an entry fee?

I have known Asians (from the Ryukyus, the Philippines, and Korea), who have complained of a snobbish attitude on the part of the Japanese, but rmember that they were nations which were militarily occupied by Japan. Any anti-Yankee sentiment I experienced was little different from what I've encountered in England, Italy or Spain, and hardly felt like racism.

Nonetheless, even if you take into account caveats such as flashpoints brought about both by ignorance, and linguistic and cultural awkwardness, it just cannot be disputed that discrimination exists.

And the Japanese just are not plucky resistance fighters. They are a giant that take what they want from Western Culture (I never realised that that in itself was a Oneness of its own - try telling that to the French or the Spanish, or for that matter Brits that loathe perceived American cultural imperialism) and reject all they do not need. As a result what they have is a hybrid exotic in subtle differing ways to me, Momus and thousands of others - not a great deal different to how I know Japanese choose between UK, French, Black American, Suburban American etc culture.

http://football.guardian.co.uk/0,1327,418417,00.html

150 thousand Koreans in Japan - never realised it was that many.

"We have not been treated as respectable human beings. We are something like refugees here in Japan. No passports and no jobs for us," lamented Lee, who works at a pinball parlour.

'The English were remarkably preoccupied with their own cultural particularity'

"I also think that many foreigners feel insulted in certain situations, because they don't have the language ability and cultural sensitivity to understand what's actually happening."

I've also lived here long enough to recognize the above as a complete load of crap. This plays into the ridiculous notion of "Nihonjiron" and is used to excuse all kinds of reprehensible behaviour. The idea being that as "gaijin" we are unable to wrap our western minds around the subtleties of Japanese society. I work in a Japanese company where of the 300+ employees less than 20 are foreign, and of that number, only 6 are Western - the rest being either Korean or Chinese. I've had Japanese girlfriends and until recently my roomate was a Japanese guy. Most of my friends are Japanese and although it's far from perfect, my Japanese is at a point where I can more than get by in day-to-day situations. I guess my point is that once you get outside of the gaijin bubble and spend some time with Japanese people, you'll realize that we are much more alike than anyone wants to admit, for whatever reasons. I know that sounds like a really obvious thing to say, but people - both Japanese and non-Japanese - cling to this idea of Japan's "otherness" with a determination that I find strange.

I love living in Japan. I've been here for a few years now, and although I don't plan to stay forever, it has been a wonderful experience. Having said that, it is without a doubt the most racist place I've ever been to, and anyone who feels that it isn't is living in a fantasy world beyond my comprehension. As Westerners we're spared the absolute worst of it, as they save that for other Asians, but it still manifests itself in small ways on a somewhat regular basis.

To insinuate that it's the fault of those being discriminated against for not understanding is simply very insulting. Discrimination isn't rocket science - it's pretty easy to recognize when it happens.

I didn't say that foreigners can't learn the Japanese language and culture - you said that.

"it is without a doubt the most racist place I've ever been to"

This is a silly statement. Are you from the U.S.? Britain? I mean, really.

Oh, and I don't want to get into a pissing contest with you, but I certainly don't live in a gaijin bubble.

"Probably the internet was down or there were no available computers or whatever"

THIS sounds more plausible to you than the fact that it might have been because they were not Japanese. C'mon!

Furthermore, I never said that foreigners can't learn the Japanese language and culture. My point was that there is this widely held belief in Japan that both of them are too difficult for us to ever fully grasp and that in turn is used to excuse behaviour which we may find offensive. "Oh don't be upset, you just don't understand what they really meant". A couple of years ago, when I first arrived, some friends and I went down to a local video store to get a membership card. The man at the desk made it clear in no uncertain terms that he didn't want foreigners in his store. It wasn't a case of "not enough available movies". It was because we weren't Japanese. Keep in mind this wasn't some small country town, this was in Nagoya - a city of over 2 million people. After asking around, we learned that it was a well known fact in that area that "gaijin" couldn't rent there. At the time my knowledge of the Japanese language and culture were negligible, but I was able to clearly understand what he was on about.

Finally, I stand by my assertion that this is the most racist place I've ever lived. I'm from Canada and I've experienced racism on both sides of the ocean, and although Japan's version is often more polite, it is much more pervasive and accepted. I'm not saying that Canada, the US and Britain aren't racist, but it's not acceptable to hold these views openly. Some of the comments uttered on a regular basis by politicians here would very quickly end a career back home. Here it's par for the course. I have a friend who can't be a teacher because her great-grandparents were forcibly brought over from Korea in the early part of last century thereby making her "Koren" and somehow unsuitable for a job with the government.

I understand the geographical, historical and cultural bases for Japanese racism, although I don't accept them as excuses. Neither should you.

"No available computers". I'm gonna pass that one on to everyone in my office, it should get a pretty good laugh.

It wasn't a contest. Nobody "wins" or "loses". I'm just really surprised that you can live in Japan and not acknowledge the fact that there's a deep current of racism here. Liking a place doesn't mean ignoring it's flaws, and this is probably one of Japan's biggest. I don't know what your national or ethnic background is, and I don't have any clue about what your personal experiences have been like living here as an expatriate. If you've never had to deal with any of this than that's great, but you've been a lot more fortunate than most foreign residents. That's all.

I remain unconvinced that foriegners would be turned away from an manga kissaten/internet joint in Shinjuku.

So what did your coworkers say, J-rock?

momus' comments about his current city and its car culture vs public transport are OK until he tries, again, to sound like he knows what he's talking about more generally. huge areas of japan lack decent public transport; actually his situation is pretty usual.

he's right about japantoday posters. if they give any indication of the people he's writing for you have to question why he's even bothering. isn't his blog bullshit space enough?

and anyone who thinks he writes well, as a couple of posters there did, must really be starved for english.

Sure, in the West there's no equivalent of Mayor Ishihara to say that crime in Shinjuku is mostly the fault of Chinese immigrants. We've learned to police our public utterances about race, make sure they're acceptable at all times. This tucks race away out of sight as an issue, but it doesn't make major racial problems (historical and practical) go away. If I'm walking around area X in Western city Y, and area X is a ghetto composed of racial group Z, and I get my wallet stolen, quite a common reaction from friends and colleagues will be 'Honestly, what did you expect? What were you thinking, walking around there alone at that time, with that money?'

That reaction contains the paradox of Western racism. Although I would never say 'All Zs are thieves', I would assume something like it when walking late at night in area X. I would assume it because racial group Z lives in area X. While my discourse on the subject would be racially blind, my practical behaviour would peek out from under the blindfold.

The alternative is to walk late at night and unprotected in area X, saying to oneself 'Just because racial group Z lives here, I mustn't assume there is any great danger of robbery. That would be inexcusably racist of me.' Alternatively, one could say 'Of course there's a higher chance of robbery in area X than in other areas. That's because widespread racism in our society has left race Z disadvantaged and forced it to take extreme measures like theft to right the wrongs which have been perpetrated against it. Although I do not wish to be the victim of a robbery, if I am it is a fate richly deserved by my race.' Alternatively, one could say 'Lack of jobs and education leaves racial group Z with little choice but to rob. This will continue until something is done at a structural level.' Or one could say 'I used to think these people were cool, but since being robbed I see them all as thieving bastards. We need more police on the beat.'

The thing is, whatever one says, and whatever of these or other positions one adopts, racism is there in the situation and will continue to be until race becomes 'a difference that doesn't make a difference' in the society in question. Are there any societies just now where race is 'a difference that doesn't make a difference'? I think not. Therefore to single one racial group out for 'racism' is... racist.

Westerners complaining about racism in Japan is a bit difficult since we don't bear the brunt of it. Ask a foreign resident of Asian or Brazillian descent or even a "Chinese" or "Korean" born in Japan, and you'll get a different story.

Arguing that the west is also racist (and it is) doesn't in any way diminish or excuse Japan's racism. Furthermore, it's the widespread level of acceptance, as well as the absolute lack of legal recourse for victims that makes Japan's version of it so unpalatable to some people.

I can't assume, based on recent experience, that I understand what is being said to me in the same subway car, in the same country i was born in, in the same city i've lived in for three years, in the same language. tough (or easy - i prefer easy but then again i actually like people and give them the benefit of the doubt for being, y'know, human like myself).

peace, out.

(ps i got a lot of free bourbon tonight - come over and drink it!)

(pps race is a construct, nothing more)

1) so how many more 'tons' are these wealthy whites carrying
2) how parochial are you that 'bed-stuy' is the most terrifying place in the world and that if *you* can walk home without fear, so can *anyone*?
3) people who have actually been attacked randomly or for purposes of robbery -- are these 'pieces of shit'? interesting.

who sez cash is liquid assets? get out of one 19th century, buddy! anybody that can buy a house for $1.5 mm on a 30 year loan is more loaded than i'll ever be.

2) how parochial are you that 'bed-stuy' is the most terrifying place in the world and that if *you* can walk home without fear, so can *anyone*?

first off, rip ossie davis, mr. mayor. second, don't lecture me about my neighborhood, bitch. i assume you don't live here, so you don't know. yes, it's no east new york, but most white people are afraid to live here, period. a dude with a name like MILES should not act all uppity.

3) people who have actually been attacked randomly or for purposes of robbery -- are these 'pieces of shit'? interesting.

they are when they say "what are you gonna do - shoot me?"

it's a very interesting subject, though.

-- Good Dog (feather...), February 7th, 2005

I can't remember a name I didn't know in the first place but... if you are looking directly at the Pepper Lunch (the one right by the Prince Hotel) it will be to your right about a block or a block and a half down the way. It is on the second floor. I believe it costs about 280 yen per hour which is very reasonable if you can sit your happy ass down. I know I wasn't able to sit my happy ass down and get in a few minutes worth of ILX but I guess dems the breaks...

you can visit japan as often as you like, but anyone who hauls out 'empire of signs' and then admits to not knowing nihongo (like the former gives you some excuse), this late in the game, should really shut up. maybe you feel now you have a bit position at some polytechnic-cum-university-of-the-future you can really make observations (if you limited it to that it might be OK), but to people who have spent any working time in japan and/or studied japanese language and culture, you are, at best, embarrassing to read. you're as much a cultural critic as you are a pop star. grow up and get a mortgage. if you get one with revolving credit you could maybe buy one of those sugoi chanel eyepatches instead of blanket stitching your own.

Aren't his absurd, faulty syllogisms (see above where he concludes to single one racial group out for 'racism' is... racist QED enough? He provides an embarrassment of riches when it comes to foolish nonsense.

I loved that extra touch of otaku-chikan lechery he added when defending his love of urban overcrowding on trains: And that can be quite pleasant if you like being crushed up close against strangers. Gets me quite frisky.

Oh, man! Momus is just digging the hole deeper. He can't be ignorant of the all too common problem of women encountering unwanted groping on the trains in Japan, could he? Oh, I forget. He chooses to remain ignorant. He not only out-Japaneses the Japanese in performing alienated Japanese-ness, he really out-otakus the regular nihonjin otakus. GO, Momus, go!

Getting smushed against strangers on the train is not my bag. It's unpleasant enough to have the breath literally squeezed out of your lungs when the strangers next to you are odorless and well-groomed. But what a totally depraved chikan one must be to get excited by being pressed up against salarymen reeking of booze, ciggies, lung-butter, mothballs, and halitosis (often caused by stress and other mental ill health)! Don't even talk about the terrific amount of dandruff some of my fellow commuters sport.

It is possible to be fearful of a location because many people have been robbed there and not because of the social demographic that lives there, Momus. Perhaps you should try that instead?

Subscription manages to be abusive without actually addressing any of the issues on the thread or answering any points. "Grow up and get a mortgage" gives me some indication of his/her values, though.

Momus is it true, as a little bird told me, that you're currently lecturing on how to compose music for film without ever actually having composed any music for films yourself?

It's actually the other way around. I have made film music, but am working as artist in residence at a university in Hokkaido, collecting sound and making a webcast radio station which you can listen to here.

Interesting timing.

Reported incidents of sexual assault on Tokyo's trains have reached a record high, with 2,201 cases last year.

This is up from 2,058 cases in 2003 and is triple the number of such incidents recorded in 1996.

The rise is partly attributed to the increased willingness among women to report assaults.

A recent survey found that nearly 64% of Japanese women in their 20s and 30s said they had been groped on trains, subways or at stations in Tokyo.

More than half of the incidents took place during morning rush hour, when passengers are pressed tightly against each other, police said. Teenage girls accounted for a third of the victims.

Groping has long been a problem in Japanese trains, and a few lines have introduced women-only carriages.

The police said they planned to step up patrols on trains and platforms and urge rail companies to increase the number of single-sex train cars.

Reporting culprits has been made easier by the introduction of mobile phones with a camera facility, which allow the victim to take a photo of the molester.

Here's an actual real-life example: a friend of mine lives in a new building near Boston Common. Three stabbings have occurred on his block since he moved there in September. We are wary when we go to visit him because people have been attacked there in the very recent past. There is a homeless shelter across the street from his building with a large black and Latino population but until I see a statement from the shelter stating, "Sorry about our residents running around The Theatre District getting stabby with it" I'm not going to assume they are the direct cause of the violence; I find it much more likely that the violence is a direct cause of there being few residential buildings on a high traffic density block with poor lighting and many small alleyways to run away into (ie the probability of getting away with violence is high, ergo people prone to violence are more likely to commit it there).

It's disingenuous to say race is unimportant or a non-factor in the way people view these things but it is equally disingenuous to use that fact as an excuse to justify or laud racist, discriminatory beahvior and attitudes.

I'd really like an explanation of why the statement "to single one racial group out for racism is racist" is:

a) A syllogism
b) Foolish

Quod ain't yet demonstrandum on this, sorry.

"People in Japan feel more at ease with one another than people in the West do because they're racially monolithic"

Western misconception about Japan #4080

"Tam Ochai's wispy painted portraits of anemic girls in vintage fashions, their bodies and hairdos always threatening to dissolve into a glib knock-off of American Abstract Expressionism, seem to critique a culture in which so many Japanese women remain ornamental second-class citizens, more often protected than empowered."

First, they spell Tam Ochiai's name wrong. Hello! You're an art critic, you have the catalogue! Second, American AbEx plays no part in Tam's work. Third, if it did, Tam would undoubtedly be a lot more hammy and macho than he is. (Think De Kooning's 'Woman' series.) Fourth, Tam is absolutely not 'critiquing a culture in which... etc'. He just likes wispy girls (he used to date Takako Minekawa). He likes their delicacy and cuteness. Fifth, to say that Japanese women are 'ornamental second-class citizens' is a gross and stupid racial stereotype.

http://www.takeartcollection.com/gallery/images-artwork/tamochiai/tochiai-titlerubiccube1nosespray-s.jpg

http://www.artfacts.net/exhibpics/10184.jpg

http://www.teamgal.com/ochiai/2000.jpgs/legs.jpg

http://www.cfa.ilstu.edu/galleries/images/ochiai_install.jpg

http://www.artnet.com/magazine/reviews/henry/Images/henry2-26-11s.jpg

and see, instead of Tam's obvious adoration for women, a critique of a social problem? The very idea of femininity is in crisis in the West when to see a woman in a painting is to see a social problem in a painting. Does this make it more easy and more free to be a woman in the West?

so, am I compltete wrong or what? I'd like your opinion on what I wrote.

It's telling that in the West we always see freedom as the ability to transgress against society's rules, be a renegade, be a troublemaker, wreck hotel rooms, be sinful, etc. There are other freedoms. What about the freedom to identify more fully with one's social role, to be who one inevitably is rather than entertain dreams that one can be whatever one likes? What about the freedom to feel good about being feminine, to feel at home in the skin you're born in, to be embodied and integrated and safe? The problem with the Western idea of freedom is that it's based on equality of opportunity rather than actual existing social roles. Western freedom is built on dreams.

More on this in my essay Superlegitimacy.

"There is no repressive culture of order in Japan"

Huh?

One of the main functions of the Japanese education system is impart on young people the idea of what it is to be Japanese. Two key elements of the Japanese educational experience are the absolute authority of the teacher and bullying. Unlike in the West, students may never question a teacher, even when they may be wrong. This dynamic repeats itself in society through the relationship between boss and employee or "sempai" and "kouhai". In addition, bullying is endemic to Japanese schools. It is often given tacit support and allowed to continue by educators because it too teaches the victims important lessons about the dangers of stepping outside of very strictly defined social limitations. Kids are taught that they can't be too smart, too stupid, too tall, too pretty; anything that makes them stand out lest they suffer the consequences. There is also an inordinate amount of family pressure and a great deal of concern as to what neighbours, peers or colleagues think about one's behaviour. So while there are no jackbooted police enforcing social norms, there is pressure to conform, and a great deal of it. People don't necessarily "prize collectivism over individualism", they're just afraid to be different. There's an old Japanese saying which says: "the nail which sticks up gets hammered down". Sounds a little repressive to me.

"What about the freedom to feel good about being feminine, to feel at home in the skin you're born in, to be embodied and integrated and safe?"

I'd rather be free in the Western sense than choose what you desribed above. Alot of what you write here in this thread I see as an excuse for not only racism but now other types of repression. Right to be feminine? More like (a very, very male dominated) society telling women they should act a certain way. Exactly why you dont find women in power in Japan. Stop making fancy excuses for alot of the shit that goes on there. No one of us is saying the West is better than Japan, no one is saying the West is perfect, but you certainly seem to think there is nothing wrong with Japanese society. Everything can be explained with big words. If this is not true then please make a list of things you find inexcusable about Japanese society. You dont seem to have a problem to do the same with the West.

goodnight

1. That anyone can be anything they like.
2. That society does not exist.
3. That if society exists, it must be our enemy.
4. That there is a place outside society.
5. That freedom consists in escaping from society to that place outside.

"Stop making fancy excuses for alot of the shit that goes on there. No one of us is saying the West is better than Japan, no one is saying the West is perfect, but you certainly seem to think there is nothing wrong with Japanese society."

Sorry Momus, but I think she's got your number. I really do love Japan. The list of things that I like about living here would take ages to lay out in any amount of detail. However, I'm not blind to it's faults. Sometimes it seems as though you let your affection for the place obscure the fact that it isn't indeed perfect, and in some ways quite deeply flawed. In short, it's just like everywhere else.

This works out really well for people who fit these roles, as defined by Japanese society. What about the girls, for example, who don't "inevitably" fit the Japanese ideal of femininity? It's not terribly liberating for them, or for anyone else who "inevitably" falls outside the bounds of accepted norms and defined social roles. In fact, it's pretty ostracizing for them on a level which I can only imagine.

"I'm not racist, I just don't like the way foreigners behave so really it's nothing personal, I just don't like any of you because you don't act like me"...that kind of thinking doesn't work for me I'm sorry...I don't care if that's a japanese speaker or an american speaker...You can be like Momus and be an apologist and put the blame on the person feeling excluded but it just doesn't work for me...

At the best you might call that sort of reasoning insensitive. To say that kind of insensitivity exists in other areas doesn't excuse Momus' insensitivity and any apparent insensitivity on the part of the Japanese, Americans, Brits, Australians etc etc...

I kind of think I'd HATE to be a sexual partner of Momus because if I told him I thought he was an insensitive lover he just might launch into a diatribe to explain it's because I just don't understand his love making and if I think he's bad, I should take a look at the other offerings around to know that bad sex happens everywhere and his kind of bad sex is far less offensive because really it's only because I haven't learned how to make love to HIM...I need to make and effort to understand his kinks and then I'll finally learn what good sex is...

I just doesn't work for me

a) A syllogism
b) Foolish

That statement itself isn't a syllogism; I used that statement to identify a particular set of specious logic, one definition of syllogism. Quit using strawman args and discussions to distract from criticism of your ideas.

Why do I consider your reasoning flawed and foolish? Please see Dan Perry's postings: You assume that the reason one is afeared to be in a certain area must be because of the race of the occupants of that area when the actual reason one is afeared to be in an area may be independent of race of the area's occupants. You are using faulty inductive logic, applying a particular reasoning (your own racist fear of a neighborhood) to the general (if you're racist and but don't dare to admit it, then everyone else is also racist but afraid to admit it).

you have the choice to enjoy it or hate it.

Err...like you have the CHOICE to enjoy a sound beating when mugged? Just because some people enjoy being whipped and beaten doesn't make it a CHOICE for me to enjoy or hate it. Howsabout I throw down your frail little body and stomp on your genitals in three inch stilletto heels (this is a fetish I have encountered reviewing many videos featuring trampling and cbt -- cock and ball torture)? You can choose to enjoy or hate that, too. Too ridiculous! I think your idea that being crushed in a train is a *choice* one can make between enjoyment and hatred is most QED of your nonsense.

I really must give it a rest. I find no value in engaging in a discussion with Momus with the expectation that it be reasonable.

no, you have the choice to run away from a group of kids whose racial makeup is different than yours because you think you might get mugged.

at least some forms of hypocritism are interesting. Momus, however, is so boring and tired.

Asian cultures like... NORTH KOREA!!! OMG WTF PWNED

If I may, I would like to clarify my position further. I was quite wrong to enjoy, in the past, the sensation of losing myself in the 'human jam' of a Japanese subway train. To say that high density situations are socially virtuous even when people probably only put up with them because they have to is pretty patronising. Clearly everyone in the world, given adequate material means, would spread out into the largest available space, and make it private space if at all possible. Utopia is a sort of high-security fenced sprawl bisected by busy roads in which each car carries one tubby, contented individual burning fossil fuel and emitting uncontrolled greenhouse gases as well as a dollop of carbon monoxide for the few remaining pedestrians to inhale.

Uh, this is kind of OTM isn't it?!?

Ladies, I have something to say about sexism too! I've been concealing this for some time, but it's no secret, many of you know it already. Japan is an incredibly sexist society. We know this because Japanese women are these tiny tiny ornaments, really submissive and completely without power, that Japanese men just kind of keep on their mantelpieces (if they have mantelpieces in Japan, I'm sure they must, though probably at a much lower level than ours) like teeny teeny decorative Christmas tree angels (they love Christmas in Japan) or porcelain figures of Marie Antoinette. Japanese women have probably been bred that down through centuries of repugnant sexism, but now we've got Dolly The Sheep we can clone 'em some big feisty ones.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1195000/images/_1195266_hemphill300.jpg

i was speaking to the drummer from trans am, whose parents lived through the nightmarish upheavals of 1970s argentina. apparently one of their friends was arrested by the militia during a street-to-street search because his bookcase contained a volume with the title 'la revolution de cubisme'. the very word 'revolution' raised nasty suspicions as to his good character.

nothing i've posted to this thread has been remotely relevant, has it?

I don't think that definition of the Western ideal of freedom is very accurate. The ideal of freedom has more to do with the basic rights to freedom of speech, religion, association, and so on. The idea is basically that as long as you're not harming others, you should be able to live your life the way that you want to, without undue interference from government or other people. This also means that employers, landlords, etc. have a long list of criteria that they are not supposed to use to discriminate against potential employees, tenants, etc. - including such things as race, sex, sexual orientation, age, religion, nationality and so on. I think it's a "good thing that it's illegal to discriminate on that basis in the US - even though, yes, it will still happen sometimes, at least there is a means of recourse and an establishment of societal disapproval of such behavior.

When you start talking about the "freedom...to be who one inevitably is" - it seems you are in danger of draining freedom of any useful meaning. It's a very Taoist idea of freedom: freedom is fate, strength is weakness, being is nothingness, etc. Perhaps these paradoxical statements contain kernels of deep, metaphysical truth, but it's hard to hold a mundane political discussion using the terms in such an abstract and spiritual way. When we talk about freedom in terms of society, it helps to have a fairly mundane, measurable quality in mind. That measurable quality should correlate with an increase in the number of choices allowed to the individual - not a decrease.

What about the freedom to identify more fully with one's social role, to be who one inevitably is rather than entertain dreams that one can be whatever one likes?

Indeed, what about it?

Not being a Daily Mail reader, I don't often think that I live in a sick society that's atomised, dangerous, dead, unspontaneous, boring, oppressive, and so I don't fetishize or exoticize other cultures to counterweight the kulturpessimismus.

There are lots of bad things about 'the West' where I live, and lots of good things about other cultures. But few of your adjectives really ring true for me.

Where is this coming from? Do you want a medal?

You're the only one who keeps bringing up the racial stereotype of Japanese women, btw, and your hyperbolic rant about it was both non-sequitur and insulting.

Cool... Let me know what's up with the joint.

It's a stupid argument from which we should all adjourn...Is Japan a racist country? Of course it is...Show me a country that doesn't enjoy a bit of Us v. Them whether it be sport, sex or musical credibility...so let's stop discussing the obvious...let's talk about things that really matter...like the fact...FACT I tell you that Japan is overrun with a Paedophilia epidemic...

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hey... i like this

http://metropolis.japantoday.com/tokyo/569/mailbox.asp

Foreign to Me
I feel incredibly disappointed by Momus’ (Nick Currie) article “Staying Foreign” (The Last Word, January 14) for several reasons.

First let me say that Momus is a brilliant songwriter. But his point of view of foreigners retaining their ignorance of the culture they live in is a spit in the face of the many who have lived, adapted and survived in this country.

Momus writes of foreigners, but doesn’t he only mean “white” foreigners? His incredibly racist implications don’t speak for the zainichi Korean born in Japan, who speaks possibly three languages, nor the francophone African, who can’t cash in on the white eikaiwa industry but likes the country regardless. Do these people fit his image?

Momus only represents an Asian fetishist who never has to come to terms with his own ignorance because no matter where he goes an Asian woman will eventually sleep with him. His (mis)use of the term “orientalism” is horrible and only serves to support his unreliable reasoning. Most Asian-Americans at least use “Asian fetishist” in disdain of such a term with racist inclinations already included. I quote: “‘Orientalism’ is only a vice when it denigrates ‘the bad other.’” Really? As an African-American, do I really want to be fetishized? When does it not denigrate me?
The mention of Yasser Arafat remains the most gleaming error. Using Arafat’s example, Momus would mislead us to believe anyone who dreams but never achieves should be more glorified, and that is a lie. Identity is not only struggle or failure but also achievement and resolution.—michelemg (Tokyo)

http://18hz.deid.net/sugarape/res/fountain.jpg

"Do you like foreigners?"
That was a question Annie (my neighbor) had to ask her fifth grade class because she was teaching a lesson on other cultures.

Annie had not written the lesson, the other teacher had. Naturally, Annie was stunned that the teacher had included such a question.

But the worst part is that more than half the class answered NO.

It's not so much the fact that they (we) will have to carry one, but the stated reasons for it. If the prevention of crime and terrorism are the real reason for this, then why don't Japanese citizens also have to carry something similar?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4671687.stm

Japan racism 'deep and profound' says U.N.

In other news, the sky is blue.