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Comment by stanrivers | Hacker News Reader

Not to be depressing, but you could speak fluent Japanese and you will always be "my foreign friend" or "our foreign coworker" or "the white guy with really good Japanese" to, by and large, even your closest friends.

On average, the country and its people are incredibly inviting and kind to guests and appreciative of foreigners that learn Japanese. However, you will always be viewed, by the vast majority, as being a guest - even after many many years and fluent Japanese.

And some people are fine with that, and some people can't stand that.

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I'm of mixed minds on this. The phenomenon is definitely real -- you'll be instinctively treated like a pet by a lot of people. This is frustrating. But I would not go as far as saying "you will always be 'my foreign friend'".

Many foreigners in Japan have no marketable skills, and therefore get stuffed into the comfortable role of Foreign Guy, and never leave the role. It's a seductive role: you can get by with pretty minimal language skill and cultural awareness, make enough money to live in a nice place and do fun things, and you don't have to live with any of those annoying rules that drive the natives crazy!

So people get to a certain level of cultural proficiency, and stop. Perhaps they teach English (or some other non-Japanese language), and their professional identity becomes...English. They go to foreign-hangout places, and hang out with foreign people. They don't learn the cultural norms beyond tourist-level schtick, and stick out like a sore thumb in any social situation. So yeah, of course those people tend to attract people who fetishize foreigners. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I've also met foreigners living and working across the country, in real professional capacities. They have colleagues and friends spouses and lives that I characterize as native as you can get. You're never completely native -- but that's true anywhere.

> Not to be depressing, but you could speak fluent Japanese and you will always be "my foreign friend" or "our foreign coworker" or "the white guy with really good Japanese" to, by and large, even your closest friends.

I know what you mean, but I wanted to say that this is true essentially in all parts of the world, with the notable exception of some parts of North America.

I think you refer to the subtle changes of behavior that come with the "you're our foreign coworker" that are specific to a lot of Asian cultures and are highly unpleasant, sometimes even racist.

That, however, is also present in China, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam, etc.

Interestingly, in my limited experience, the Philippines is an amazingly open and hearty country without this "insider vs outsider" mentality.

Yeah I heard of this, I think I'd be ok with it as this kind of thing would likely happen in China or other asian countries as well. Thanks for the tips.

I think this is largely the case for asian countries where the people are more homogeneous. You get much less of this in countries or cities that are much more ethnically and culturally diverse.

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