I’m no stranger to people staring or making obvious “look, it’s a foreigner” type comments. While I was living in Nanjing (China) in 1999, I must have heard this sort of thing dozens of times a day. People riding by on bicycles would yell “Lao Wai” (foreigner) or their best approximation of “Hello” at me as they passed. This was all well and good if a bit tiresome after a few months, and I came to block it out.
In Tokyo there are non-Japanese people everywhere. (They make up 2.93% of the population as of January 2007.) Sometimes I feel curious gazes, but in general no one looks at you twice. But when I go out with my son, who is of mixed Japanese and Caucasian ethnicity we somehow draw a lot of attention. Most of this is positive and ties in with the stereotype that "half" Japanese children are cuter than other Japanese children. I wrote about my frustration with this term and the internalized racism it carries here. But we get a different kind of attention from elementary school kids.
Recently my wife and I hear children saying things like "foreigner!" or "English speaker!" And lately I often hear kids and adults alike repeating oubeika (欧米か – Westerner), the punchline to a popular comedy routine. On a couple of occasions in the last few weeks kids have actually come up to us and asked if we were foreigners. I explain that I am but that my son is Japanese. If they are too confused by this I’ll clarify that he is both American and Japanese. (My wife stands out less when she is out with our son but because they speak English with each other they are noticed and get the same questions. She was recently asked why they were speaking English.)
There are a few things that make me sensitive to what I otherwise would view as healthy curiosity on the part of these children. The first is my vague aversion to the term "gaijin." This is the word that children seem to use instead of the more respectful "gaikokujin." There are various viewpoints on this and I don’t really want to argue about the implications of the word "gaijin" but suffice it to say that it gives me a bad feeling to hear it pointed at my son.
I’ve read articles written by parents of mixed race children in Japan describing their experience raising children here 10 to 20 years ago. In several of these accounts the children were singled out as different and the children reacted by denying the foreign elements of themselves to the point that they refused to speak English with their English-native parent. I don’t really think there’s much risk of this with my son in present-day Tokyo, but it pains me to think he might be pressured to discard part of his identity to be accepted by his peers.
And while rare, there are some cases of adults and children that clearly have a negative feeling toward foreigners. In a nearby park there is one father in particular who is rude and leaves with his daughter when we enter the area. On the occasions when kids make negative remarks about English or foreigners it is clear that they are repeating what they heard from their parents. So my challenge is to resist the urge to get angry at the kids directing racial comments at my son and remember that they are children. My wife is good at turning their one-sided comments into conversations that end with the kids perhaps gaining a wider understanding. (We hope.) I’m starting to relax a bit more and learn from her technique. But it’s not always easy.
16 Responses to “Gaijin!”
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Just stumbled across your blog here.
This is a great entry. Thanks.
I’ve been struggling with these same issues for a while now and have posted some stuff at my own blog. If you check out the categories, search under gaijin. Also you should check out debito . org.
You post on “haafu” was also good. I hate the term, but given its mostly a positive stereotype things could be worse. I guess.
This is an excellent post. I’ve lived sort of the flip-side to this being half Japanese (on my mother’s side) and growing up in southeast Michigan. As a child I distinctly remember being called all sorts or ignorant and derogatory things by other children and sadly even a few adults. This was especially true in the 80’s when I was still in elementary and middle schools and there was very palpable anti-Japanese sentiment within a lot of the families of my peers, most of whom worked for one of the Big Three (GM, Ford, and Chrysler). I’m in my early 30’s now and thankfully I don’t feel that I get treated differently most of the time. I attribute this mostly to the fact that I live in a major university town and multiculturalism is an everyday part of life in a very large sense here.
Like you mentioned, I do regret that as a young child I did go through a period of denying my Japanese heritage to make me feel like I ‘fit in’. I feel like I missed out on a lot of experiences because of it. I finally came to realize how foolish this was in high school, and throughout college I really came to see what I had missed out on.
I hope your son learns to embrace his heritage and doesn’t get discouraged by the ignorance of others. The one thing that personally I found most helpful, and some times the most rare, was having friends of similar backgrounds that I could relate to and really share my Japanese heritage with. I know now, how invaluable those kinds of friendships are. Hopefully, your son will find good friends who share similar backgrounds and will help each other to appreciate what a wonderful mix of cultures they share. Best of luck to you and your family.
It really depends on the area you live in and the education of the population. We live in the countryside and the town’s population is 1/100 that of Tokyo. However, foreigners seem nothing special there. Very rarely I am getting comments (“amerika-jin”, not pleased with that attribution
and nothing whatsoever towards TT in the nursey (there is another half black kid even). It appears that people in our area or town are fairly affluent and educated. Many people have lived abroad on business or have children working/living/studying abroad, so “foreigners” are nothing special to them. Generally, I don’t feel like telling undereducated people about the virtues of a cultural diverse society. I usually just move on.
Nonetheless, the odd funny thing happens. The other day a mother in the nursery was asked whether the father of a darker skinned boy was Filipino or Thai (the answer was no). Also our neighbour oyaji leaves the playground with his grandchild when other people arrive, we think for fear of illnesses (the other newborn grandchild has so far spent 99% if her life indoors, because it is ‘dirty’ outside, the viruses etc.).
Matt-
Thanks for the links. Yes, the “haafu” thing is definitely irritating though as you say there are many worse forms of discrimination.
Chris-
Thank you for sharing your experience! I haven’t heard many stories from people in my son’s situation but who grew up in the States. As you said, of all the places to grow up in the States, Michigan state in the 1980s sounds like a rough time. In high school were you the only Japanese American in your class?
When my wife was living in Chicago (for 8 months in the late 1990s) she said on several occasions people pulled up at the edges of their eyes to simulate “Asian eyes” or did Bruce Lee style antics in front of her. But when living in a liberal college town (Madison, Wisconsin) she says she rather felt invisible, and sensed that some people viewed Asians as either uncool, nerdy, or cute in a diminutive sense. (And in one case the word “chink” was yelled at her by a drunk frat boy.)
We actually host an English playgroup that is currently entirely made up of kids between 1 and 4 that have one Western parent and one Japanese parent. (We are not aiming for mixed race kids, just English speaking families. It just ended up this way.) The impetus was initially around having an English haven so that our children could use English with their peers, but as our kids get older I hope they will be able to rely on each other for understanding and emotional support if they need it.
Thanks again for stopping by.
Dirk-
It’s certainly true that location matters. I’m very sorry to hear that you’re being called American! I’m almost offended to be called that and I am American!
Our neighborhood is very working class and it is built around dozens of small factories and a few large international hubs. There are numerous South Asians (Bengali mostly), Chinese, Koreans, and Filipinos living here, so my son will not be the only foreigner when he starts Kindergarten (that’s another topic to write about…). While there are a number of people who are interested in studying English and traveling, many are decidedly non-global in their perspective and that is reflected in their language. Words like “half” and “gaijin” are used commonly without any consciousness of possible negative connotations and I’ve heard a few openly racist statements against Chinese and South Asians who hang out in the park. Sadly, I think open racism against these groups is accepted around here.
On the other hand, if we start getting uncomfortable with terms like “half” and “gaijin”, then the next natural step are some unnatural, yet politically correct terms. “My son is a native Japanese-Caucasian American, Sir! As for me, I am a Permanent Non-Japanese Resident. Have a good day.”
So in the end, you really don’t want a debate around terminology, because you don’t want a person to be reduced to a category, no matter what the term.
Well said. I giggled at your example. Sir!
In elememntary school, my brother and I were definitly the only Japanese-Americans, but in high school there were a few other kids that were of various Asian decent. I can definitely relate to the Bruce Lee references and the like. Even today I feel that a lot of Americans still don’t see there are vast cultural differences between Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, etc. and just lump all Asians together into one stereotype. Out of curiosity, do you feel that a lot of Japanese do that to westerners? (i.e. not make much distiction between Americans and Europeans)
I think your son will have a great resource as he grows up if he maintains friendships with the children in his playgroup. I think it’s great that you set that up for him. I wish I had something more like that when I was growing up.
I would say that in Japan most people definitely lump everyone of a given ethnic group together. So all white Westerners would generally be subject to the same stereotypes.
It means a lot to hear you say that about the playgroup. Thank you. It’s a little hard because a lot of people end up moving out of Japan, but I think that at least a few of them will grow up together in Tokyo.
I just discovered your blog searching for reviews on Japanese-English dictionaries and I came across this entry. This is really interesting and I appreciate you sharing your experiences. I spent a year living in Tokyo and at times felt stares but never anything to serious. Now I’m back in the states, however, I do have aspirations of returning to Japan one day and maybe even starting a family there. So these kinds of insights are invaluable to me at this point in my life. I’ll be looking forward to reading more about your experience raising multi-cultural children in Japan.
The “half” thing is easy to deal with. One of my female SHS students told me today she has a “half” friend. I asked her how many languages her friend spoke…”two”….I asked her how many cultures her friend was a part of…”two”…..so I asked her, is your friend a “half” or a “DOUBLE”? I’ve started using this term to attempt a slight realignment of cognitive functions. Seems to be going quite well.
I am sorry, but you should get over it. As a Japanese guy living in KY, I have had some horrible/weird encounters with locals. But I guess that is a part of my life, and I am sure others (e.g., Chinese, Indians, etc) may have similar experiences. I do get sense, however, Americans in Japan, especially Caucasians, seemed to be overtly self-conscious and that is just ridiculous. As Americans often say this to (dissenting) immigrants, you should leave if you don’t like. I think there is some truth in it.
Kentaki-
I can hardly imagine what you must have experienced in the American South in terms of the weird and horrible. That said, I think I have to disagree with your assertion that Caucasian Americans in Japan are more self-conscious than other immigrant groups. I know several South Asians who feel more strongly than I do, as well as an Indian-British, several African-Americans, and a number of Southeast Asians. I would say that Caucasian Americans have the least “right” to complain among immigrant groups.
I must admit that I used to feel the way you did, that white people in Japan were too in love with their perceived discrimination and to some degree I still feel that way. But having a child now has made me feel differently and I have perhaps become a bit oversensitive as well as a result.
You said some Americans tell immigrants that they should leave if they don’t like it. I couldn’t disagree with this statement more, especially in the context of the United States. (Though perhaps if you don’t like being looked at all the time, then just leaving Japan is sensible.) But in the States there are many groups working for social change, which is obviously the best way to go.
I don’t understand why when asked by the children if you were foreigners, you replied that you were a “gaijin”, but that your son was “Japanese.” When Japanese people say “gaijin,” they use that term to refer to the fact that you are not from Japan and that you are not racially Japanese. So, really your son isn’t “Japanese.” He’s haafu, or Japanese-American, or whatever hypenated term you prefer.
I’m haafu too, but with a Japanese father instead. I never had any qualms about being called haafu. It’s just a word, who cares? I’ve always thought that people who judge me based on my race, or heritage are a waste of time. So, I ignore them. Besides, people nowadays judge you based on (as one famous man hoped) “the content of [your] character.” In general, it’s the haafu’s monoracial parents who always make such a fuss about race issues. Your son will find his own way, as we all do.
Kimiko,
Thanks for writing. I don’t think I’m one of the “monoracial parents who always make such a fuss about race issues.” I do think that race issues warrant some attention though, given the prevalence of various forms of racism in just about every country. But I don’t think of my son in terms of his race, which is maybe part of why I sometimes get irritated when strangers continually bring up his race to me.
I wrote this last May, almost six months ago. My son has changed so much since then and is a great deal more eloquent in both languages. As you say, he’ll find his own way as we all do.
I like what Kimiko said. Although we parents want to protect our children from bullying and discrimination, we really can’t. I think I will try to talk to my son honestly about it as early and often as possible. Then when others call him “haafu” or whatever, he’ll just be like, “Yeah, so what?” “Haafu” kids theoretically have so many more opportunities in the majority of the English-speaking world, so they aren’t forced to stay secluded in Japan. I will definitely point this out to the Japanese. Who is the “minority” and who is the “majority”, anyway-linguistically speaking?
I was once on a ferry somewhere in Kyushu with my wife (Japanese) and two children. We became the focus of attention for a group 10-year-olds on a school trip from somewhere remote, and after a few minutes of shy staring, one plucked up the courage to come up to me and ask what kind of person I was (Nanijin desu ka). I replied in Japanese, telling him that I was an Earthling and asking him what planet he was from. That broke the ice quite spectacularly, and my kids were soon chatting happily with them. On another occasion, the outcome was less happy. At Tokyo Disneyland, a group of young women spotted my daughter, then 3 years old, and abandoned Goofy and Mickey to have their pictures taken with her. My daughter got very upset at the sudden attention, and I got very angry that they’d treated her like just another Disney toon, rather than as a human being. But in Japan at least the attention is generally good-natured and motivated by natural curiosity. And if you get too paranoid, everyone will stare at you!