The Importance Of Japanese View Non-Japanese

Register to read the introduction… Often it cannot be determined for sure what they really think. There is a mixture of admiration, suspicion, and most often a lot of nervousness about dealing with someone who doesn't look or act like the Japanese. It is very hard for non-Japanese to get an apartment, or a loan, credit card, etc in Japan. There is no logical or rational explanation for this conflict -- since Japanese do not think in a logical, rational fashion, at least in western terms. If you look at Japanese TV advertisements, the first thing you'll notice is that there are westerners in about a third of them. There are also half a dozen fluent Japanese speaking foreigners endlessly recycled on TV variety shows, constantly ingratiating themselves and amusing the Japanese enough to want them back. Their only real talent is speaking Japanese well, and many long term ex-pats see them as intellectual ¡¥whores¡¦ since they must go through the same problems others do, yet they know the rule of getting invited back is to never bite the hand that feeds them. Yet, there are also periodically TV infotainment shows following the cops and catching those ¡¥awful foreigners¡¦ committing crimes in ¡¥our country¡¦, with sinister background music shrieking away. Japanese youth generally show positive attitudes about foreigners; from others there is often indifference. And then there is the racial question. Many people coming to Japan wonder if the …show more content…
One good example is that on top of a few Japanese "Love Hotels" (which are hotels decked out in glittery pink neon and rent rooms by the hour or night for obvious reasons) you will find a big Statue of Liberty. It may be flattering that such an American or generally Western symbol is taken for "liberty", but at the same time to see it on top of a sleazy hotel is a little disconcerting. In the same way, the westerner coming to Japan will right from the airport be drowned in the "compliment" Nihongo wa jouzu desu neh, or "Your Japanese is good". It's usually spoken in a "Look Mom, the horse can do math problems" kind of way -- slightly condescending. The problem with all this is that it is put on you a thousand times a day, every time you open your mouth, in exactly those same words -- never once said in a different way. And the fact that it has nothing to do with your Japanese ability or the effort you are making as a successful businessperson to respect the other country¡¦s culture. To the Japanese, they are not consciously looking down on you, but rather trying to establish rapport through bombarding you with things they think you like to hear. It's important not to get upset about this and just play humble by denying the praise over and over as they would. All of that is relatively benign. The real problem is dealing with the