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Comment by louthy | Hacker News Reader

> friendly population

Is that really the case if you're not from Japan? I have read and heard a number of horror stories over the years [1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/31/japan-racism-s...

The way this was explained to me, and this is fourth-hand knowledge by now, is: In japan, foreigners are treated like cute puppies. Mostly everyone wants to play with you, and people don’t mind you in their everyday lifes.

If you learn to speak japanese, you become a dog that can talk. Even cuter! People who know this talking dog for some time might start to accept that it has human-like intelligence, and actually treat you as a fellow human being.

However, as soon as you meet new people, you’re moved back to square dog.

In a Japanese class, we had an English teacher for Japan explain his role. He defined himself as somewhere between the town freak and a clown. People expect you to make errors, and will only find them funny, never offensive.

This is purely anecdotal of course, but I have never had anything but the friendliest and warmest encounters in Japan while I lived there on and off for a few years. None of the gaijins (foreigners) I met had any issues neither. They are almost too friendly to a fault. Of course after you get to know them, they drop some of the cultural barriers, especially Kansai (western Japan) folks.

I highly recommend anyone who haven’t been to Japan to go now :). Beautiful landscape and architecture, smart and cultured folks, and of course, sushi!!!

The only downside: losing your appetite for sushi outside of Japan :(

Racism in Japan is nowhere comparable to racism in China.

Could you elaborate?

Chinese propaganda today still infuses its citizens with a sense that Han Chinese is superior to other ethnic groups and races. You wouldn't possibly find anything remotely like that in any other Asian countries. If you think I'm exaggerating, here's a piece of NYT news that demonstrates their outright racism toward African people: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/world/asia/china-africa-b...

I'm not saying all of them are. In Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen where there are more young people who either accepted Western influences or got their college education in the West, racism may be less a problem. But those cities only represent less than 5% of China.

It goes deeper than that-- The physical territory, the ruling government, and the Han ethnic group (including "overseas Chinese") are considered equivalent. Kind of like a giant family where blood relations are mixed up with authority, history etc.

So, Han people are a political tool to use in colonization ("Hanification" currently going on in Tibet and Xinjiang) and also an asset to be maintained through what westerners might call eugenics.

It's more deliberate than "racism," more like "American exceptionalism." It's interesting idea, but it seems scary to westerners and it feels a little bit oppressive to be an Overseas Chinese

This is so hypocritical when the West does the exact same thing.

In fact it's not hypocritical at all. Not even the least.

The parent isn't denying the mistakes or terrible things the West has done in the past.

Allow me to give you an example of why this isn't hypocritical in concept.

If I'm an obese person, it is not hypocritical to lambast other obese people for the health consequences of their physical condition - so long as I'm not denying the application of those same health consequences to my own obesity situation.

The parent comment would be hypocritical if it pretended / claimed there is no racism in Western culture, while pointing out Chinese racism or beliefs about racial superiority. (assuming the parent is part of Western culture of course)

Sure.

Two years ago, I talked to an American who is ethnically Korean and lives in Japan. I asked him if Japanese were still prejudiced against Koreans. He said that he would have said "no" in the past, but now he thinks that they're prejudiced against Korean culture, and he escaped because he was culturally American.

Just one data point...

So I lived there for 5+ years, and my wife is Korea who lived in Japan.

There is a very large and real anti-korean sentiment/prejudice in Japan.

I mean a few years ago now, but there was a bunch of anti-korean protests in shin okubo. https://japantoday.com/category/features/kuchikomi/nasty-nat...

And there's the whole 'Zainichi' thing, who are still systematically oppressed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koreans_in_Japan

Hm interesting because Korean pop culture is popular among Japanese teens just as it has become popular in the US, but again, another one data point.

Black culture is popular in the US, but racism against black people is still systemic and prevalent.

Culture and sociology are often more complex than anecdotes would suggest.

From what I understand, Japanese culture isn't particularly hostile to foreigners. It's just impossible to become Japanese without being born into the culture.

I call BS on that. One of my friends said the only place in all of Asia where he was ignored/silently shunned/could not get help was in Japan. Yes, the Japanese will not say it to your face, but they have no need for you.

I call BS on that :) I suffered a heat stroke in Yokohama a while back and many young people and even elderly came to my and took me to nearby hospital, where I got treatment for $10!

Elsewhere in Asia, if you get hit by a car in China, nobody will stop and help you in fear of being involved and sued. This has been mentioned in western media countless times.

Well, of course, the devil may lay in the details. Anecdotes follow...

My wife had a medical emergency in Tokyo on New Years day 2018. We learned the hard way that if it's not __direly life threatening in that exact moment__ that you __will not__ be given care. You'll be told to come back on the 3rd when services re-open. We got __very__ lucky and she was able to be seen as the literal last patient at an urgent care that we got in to contact with through the concierge at a previous hotel we had stayed at (a very expensive hotel we stayed at for a few nights but were not current guests with).

The __extremely__ distraught looking Australian man with a Japanese girl alongside him, looking for the morning after pill? They were turned away. A Japanese man who had been __hit by a taxi and could barely walk__ was turned away. We saw a few other cases turned away that day and I genuinely felt bad that these people could not, or would not, be seen but that my wife would. It was eye opening, to say the least.

We rounded out our trip in Roppongi and talked to some expats who said that was the standard fare. Get hurt on or around major holidays and you'll be fending for yourself, that was the signal.

New Year is really the only special time where everything's closed in japan though..

Japanese are nice people, they just tend to avoid conflict.

Look into the bystander effect this might have been the issue your friend was facing. This happens everywhere.

Sounds pretty par for the course. 1/3 to 2/5 of respondents but only 4.5k out of 18k responded.

So assuming the non-respondents were predisposed to be generally positive (otherwise why didn't they reply) if you divide the numbers by 2 (conservative figure)then you have 15-20% of the foreign population with negative experiences.

I'd say that's probably better than I'd have expected.

I would say yes on the whole. There are racist or mean people in every country

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