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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

In practice, other than being burdensome for foreigners, does it have consequential effects on ordinary Japanese, in their view?

I mean family registries are fascinating. In some places people are obliged to register people coming in and out of a household etc, like a living census. And for some jobs people have to provide family histories and professions, etc., but nevertheless the people I've spoken to aren't much bothered by as much as I seem to. For many, if not most or all, it just is. And, anthropologically it's fascinating.

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Tangent, but it actually happened, and I'm doing my best to recollect the conversation:

I once met a young lady for coffee. (It wasn't quite a date, but a situation which could eventually lead to being retconned as a date.) She asked me, in a fashion which struck me as out-of-the-blue, "Do I strike you as a typical Japanese girl?"

I figured that she was fishing for a compliment (thought process: "Who would want to be as-sent-by-central-casting?") , so I said "Oh no, you strike me as different."

She immediately burst out crying, and asked "How did you know?"

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. I didn't mean it to be taken that way. I thought you wanted me to say that you were a unique person."

"No no I want nothing other than to be a typical Japanese girl."

"What does that... OH GOD. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry no it is absolutely not possible that anybody could guess that you're ethnically Korean." (The word in Japanese is "zainichi", for 在日韓国人, the literal translation of which is "A Korean who lives in Japan.")

"... Wait you know about us?"

"I studied a variety of esoteric things in college."

"So you don't think less of me for being... you know..."

"NO NO NO NO."

Cue about an hour of talking about it. She said that none of her friends knew. I said that 2007 was a very different time than e.g. 1970 and they'd probably be understanding. "Maybe, but I can't unring that bell. What if one of them hates Koreans? What if all of them hate Koreans? What if I told? I'd never get my life back."

Tangent over.

Do you believe a piece of paper which says "My grandfather is named Kim" fails to have a consequential effect on this young lady?

(Controversial opinion for Japan incoming: She's Japanese, not Korean, under all the laws of earth and heaven. She was born in Japan, she speaks no language but Japanese, she carries a Japanese passport, she carries no other passport nor desires one, she is entirely culturally Japanese, she feels no feelings of belonging to Korea, actual Koreans would not treat her as being Korean, etc etc ad nauseum, but there exists a not-tiny contingent of her fellow countrymen who would immediately fire-in-the-eyes hate her if they somehow came to believe she was Korean.)

I've met a few people in Japan of Korean ancestry and they have all mentioned they have a very hard time fitting in and meet a lot of discrimination still everyday. I was always reluctant to dig deeper because you can definitely feel that it's a still a very open wound and something they're still actively dealing with every day.

Some similar anecdotes, while working in a Japanese office there is one co-worker whose great-grandfather was Italian. I haven't seen any actual discrimination against him, but some people are definitely happy to let you know that he is not full Japanese, so I'm certain he's ran across some for his ancestry.

Interesting. (And you're right, most Koreans won't consider her as Korean, which is probably the right judgement but it feels like neither nation is willing to claim her as their own, which is kinda screwed up.)

Now that Korea is mentioned... until 2008 Korea used to have that "koseki" thing (called "hojeok" in Korea, with the same Chinese characters, I believe). At least it wasn't used to discriminate against ethnic minorities (largely because Korea didn't have any ethnic minorities who had lived for generations, other than a handful of Chinese immigrants, who were discriminated anyway, but I digress).

What it was used for was to bind people in patriarchal Confucian ideology and make life miserable for some people. E.g., if a woman has a child, divorces but keeps custody of the child, and marries again, she couldn't change the child's family name to that of her new husband, because paternal ancestry is fucking important. So now her child must grow up being asked by everybody "Wait, why is your surname different from your dad?" That kind of thing.

And there were people who would defend this kind of idiocy.

So glad we finally got rid of that.

That's quite poignant. Of relevance, but not particularly interesting is that I've known Koreans and Japanese who have dated over the years and who don't seem to care about their interesting nationalities. On the other hand, they are of middle to upper middle class and 40ish and under.

Not sure if this is one of those things that'll disappear as the newer generations displace the older. Or if the black car squad will somehow keep the attitude alive.

Quite interesting is that there are degrees of zainichi, those who adopt Japanese names and who have assimilated and on the other end those want to retain more of their Korean identity and nationality.

There's also the intersection where some people of Korean ancestry in Japan express sympathies for North Korea, a country which is typically Japan's current arch-enemy,

One thing that conflicts with people's preconceptions, is that Japan isn't as racist as people believe. Usually the reverse is true, Koreans and Chinese claiming Japan is racist, while being racist themselves.

Take a look yourself. They did several scientific studies. They found Japan is less racist than France, and equal to most European countries:

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15...

That entire line of reasoning is reliant on truthful answers to a survey that, at least based on my level of Japanese cultural knowledge, would be answered falsely by a significant number because either they mentally argue that not being Japanese is from a different culture not a race, or they have internalised the logic of "we all do this but must not openly say so, because saying so is wrong, but everyone knows we do this anyway, so its ok as long as we don't say this is how we feel". That's just the start of "broad survey interpretation failure" I see here.

You don't think they took those factors into account? They did. Did you even read the article? They didn't ask people outright "Are you a racist?" They tricked people by asking them other indirect questions. Like, "Would you mind if <insert race/nationality> lived next door to you?" Those kinds of questions get to heart of the matter. And they didn't just ask Japan those questions, they asked every country on Earth the same questions.

Not indirect enough.

The question just forces the person being asked to think, "Would I mind if this researcher saw me as someone who would mind if a foreigner lived next door to me?" And the degree to which this second-order question matters depends heavily on social mores.

Japan is a country where people are expected from a young age to compartmentalize their tatemae (external appearance) from honne (true thoughts), and consider it perfectly normal to do so. So I wouldn't be surprised if they were simply better at hiding perceived-as-negative sentiments from naive researchers.

Koreans, on the other hand, admire Americans and Western Europeans but look down upon Africans and South/Southeast Asians, and often express outright contempt for the Japanese and Chinese. Depending on their political views, they may even feel socially compelled to express a hatred of one or another nationality. Meanwhile, Korean culture doesn't acknowledge the tatemae/honne distinction, which makes it a lot more difficult for people to compartmentalize.

tl;dr: We're all racists, but some forms of racism are easier to measure.

How minimal do you think the North Korea sympathy is, I wouldn't think it was a majority but it seemed to me to be quite a bit.

I have a problem almost like that, not as severe though.

I was born in Brazil, and I am mixed race (about 2/3 mediterranean european and 1/3 black, with a tiny bit of native american somewhere in my black ancestry)

No group of people consider me one of them.

And I don't think of myself as truly brazillian either, I don't like things most brazillians like, and I don't do things that most brazillians do, and I don't feel physical attraction for the average brazillian either.

It kinda suck, to have no nation, despite having a legal citizenship.

Well, I consider you one of us. A person. A flag might be something to die for, but a culture is something to live for.

> I don't feel physical attraction for the average brazillian either.

Well, maybe you are not one of us after all ;-) Then again, who feels attracted to average people? Don't we most often feel attracted to those that in some way stand out?

Being mixed race myself, I faced a similar problem; too white for brown people, too brown for white people. The only thing you can really do is to learn to love yourself, because that's one thing you can't change.

That sounds like it's nowhere close. Choosing to not self-identify with one's country of birth or naturalization is very different from the fear of rejection discussed above.

It is not just fear of rejection, I actually got rejected.

Example: My parents live in a neighbourhood where most people are mixed race, but heavily black (ie: people have a obvious brown skin, and have facial features and bone structure of black people).

More than once when walking on the street, I had people follow me with weapons or dogs, and one time when I was buying coca-cola in a bar on the neighbourhood, some people playing snooker stopped playing, made a circle around me, and said in a threatening tone that I was "not from here", I then pointed them my house (it was distant, but visible), then they left me alone.

Similarly, when I am visiting white-heavy areas, specially if people are slavs/nordic (russian, swedish, etc...) they also treat me as an outsider, for example they prefer to talk to other white people.

Or when I am with my uncle (that is more dark skinned) in my grandpa car (he has a expensive car for brazillian standards, a Toyota Corolla), police stop us, thinking we are thieves or thugs.

> "Oh no, you strike me as different."

Well, while in this case there was a very specific reason for her question/doubt -- I don't think it's entirely far-fetched to claim that that'd be the "wrong" answer with a lot of Japanese that didn't have any such "secret".

It's not clear how you phrased "different" - but as you probably know, "different" has a very negative connotation in Japanese in general. I'm suppose there are more positive ways to frame a similar sentiment ("No, I think you're special" - in this case that'd probably be taken as just as bad, though).

Either way, interesting anecdote. (FTR, of course there are lots of Japanese that would be more happy to be considered different, rather than conformist -- but I'd say that even today, that is much more rare in Japan than in eg. most of Europe, America (north and south) etc)

I think to "belong" is an innate human drive. Some groups make it harder to belong -- "you don't have the right ancestry, your great-grandfather has a foreign last name", "your skin is a bit too dark", "eyes are too squinty" and so on.

Other groups make it easier to belong. Say being an American is easy. Not to sing praises to America in general, but that part is easier. I was born in another country, but I can say I am American and most American could agree with that, even if I have a funny accent going on. They would say nothing to my kid, won't dig into their history either. That is a nice thing to have. So "belonging" is easier.

It is harder not to belong to any group. I think that is part of your acquaintance problem. If somehow she felt she was Korean, that would be more comforting perhaps.

Old societies and cultures seem cute, quaint or reverent to many, but there is that stuff about being prejudiced and bigoted.

In a some kind of a Darwinian way one can argue "ok, good, that society and culture will eventually lose out and be at a disadvantage", let them be exclusive and patriarchal and bigoted, they will wither way eventually. Of course that doesn't make it easier to for those born in those cultures.

> hate her if they somehow came to believe she was Korean

Why would they hate her for having Korean ancestry?

A typical Japanese will not hate a person because of having a Korean ancestry. Actually there are many celebrities who have a korean background and also are very respected.(e.g. Masayoshi Son, Akiko Wada, Tomoaki Kanemoto, Akira Maeda)

Typically, Japanese people are kind and generous, and they will closely look at the person's attitudes. The people who are not liked are the people who hate Japan and the Japanese people.

As an example, people who graduated from the Korean School (Chousengakkou) will be given an Anti-Japanese education. I heard from a Korean background person that at a Korean School, if you speak Japanese at the school, you will be beaten by your mates.

Few years ago, there were K-POP trend in Japan, and people were very interested in Korean culture and the Korean people. But when they start knowing that the majority of Korean people have huge hatred towards Japan and also the Japanese people, now many Japanese people are becoming suspicious when they hear the word Korea. It is not because they are racist or not. It is just a rule of thumb or statistics.

I admit that many Koreans have unhealthy level of hatred towards Japan as a nation, but your description neatly sidestepped the whole issue of "why", didn't it.

Koreans do remember the times when Japanese teachers would beat up Korean boys at school for using Korean, force Koreans to adopt Japanese-style names, and send young Koreans to the Pacific to be slaughtered, for the glory of Emperor Hirohito.

Personally, all the Japanese I met were nice people, and I normally don't talk history with them (I mean, what's the point?), because there are more pleasant stuff to talk about. Hopefully many others in Japan would also meet some Koreans some day and realize we are all the same people, with different historical baggages, trying to make sense in a world that doesn't make sense.

But then there are always some jerks who would say "Koreans are so mean, why do they hate Japan so much?"

Well, duh.

That is very true and thanks for telling from the other side. Hope that Koreans and Japanese will get along.

Sidenote: the "Korean Schools" mentioned here are specifically North Korean (Chosen) schools. There are South Korean schools as well, but far fewer, and both are a dying breed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%8Dsen_gakk%C5%8D

Racism?

It takes different forms in different countries, but it is alive and well.

Why is racism still alive and well?

Does it help in anything?

It's self-perpetuating. People do mean things to other people because other people have done mean things to them or their group because of that group and the cycle continues. It doesn't help that people often fail to recognize the fundamental attribution error in play, either.

> Does it help in anything?

Many argue that an arbitrary division among the disenfranchised and poor is an effective barrier for them to rise up against the minority that hoard the resources for themselves. So one could argue that it does help someone.

One theory would be that humans have a biological sense of other. In-group, out-group, etc. People fight for the same resources, preferentially for their genetically similar groups.

If there are 10 people at a table about to starve to death, and only 5 of them are related, it helps their genetic lineage to prefer to feed relatives.

Racism, as an outgrowth of us-versus-them, most likely helped with keeping a lineage alive.

Japan is very, very racist.

How?

But why?

Considering that racism is quite impractical.

Japan and Korea share a long and unfortunate history[0,1,2].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koreans_in_Japan

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Korean_sentiment#Japan

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_issues_in_Japan#Korean_...

It is not just Korea.

I know. But dennisgorelik's original comment was about prejudice against Zainichi Koreans specifically, so I was just addressing that. I probably should have commented up a level.

Homogeneity. Japan has been shut off from the world for most of its history.

I agree that a lot of people have preconceived notions and can be prejudiced, but I think "very, very racist" is going a bit overboard.

I don't think it would be very hard to find places that are a lot more racist that Japan. (Not that you'd want to go there…)

They have a long history of not getting along and the chains of hatred from the past have continually bound new generations as grudges transfer from one generation to another in the form of prejudicial actions.

We can only hope that these chains loosen over time as people reject the prejudicial treatment of others.

incredibly fascinating

> does it have consequential effects on ordinary Japanese

To quote the article:

> Though generally considered offensive, the term Eta is still in use today. One of the letters received at the abattoir expresses sympathy for the animals being killed "as they're being killed by Eta."

> "Nowadays it's still a well-known fact that people are buying this information, but rather than corporations, it's individuals buying it to check on future in-laws ahead of marriage. That's one of the biggest examples of discrimination that we frequently face."

> "I remember once when my wife and I were visiting with some of her father's relatives. When I told them what I did, they stopped pouring me beer."

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