The Gaijin Dilemma

I have been here 4 weeks now and I still haven’t seen another European. There’s a few Philippina’s in Kameoka but that’s been about it for foreigners. I’m certainly the only gaijin in the village. None of the locals seem to be fazed by my presence. I wave and say hello to everyone and they have all been polite and courteous in return. I was expecting some expressions of surprise and was even prepared for some hostility. Buying a property in the way we did is controversial in Japan and being a foreigner makes it more so. I think my limited Japanese has been of some help in this matter. Also NZ is well known in Japan and well regarded.  One old woman from up the street informed me that her daughter had spent time in Christchurch. The odd behaviour of the people across the road doesn’t seem to be connected with the fact that I am a gaijin. They’re just strange people. The debtors wife told us that they are not liked in the area and that there was a long running feud between them over a noisy dog. Obviously we have inherited this ill feeling. She told us not to bother with them as you can never make people like them happy. The problem is in them.  

Would you talk to this guy?

This brings me to the subject of what most foreigners living in Japan know as the gaijin dilemma. Whether to acknowledge the fellow foreigner or to completely ignore them. While I always used to say hello to foreigners their mixed reactions have caused me to re-evaluate this policy.  Some people will be desperate for conversation while others have a “get off my cloud” attitude. To some, it seems, acknowledging a foreigner shows that you haven’t been here long, you don’t know anything, you’re a Japan newbie. There’s also the question of would you talk to this complete stranger if you were at home? Probably not. So why, just because you are in another country, would you do so now? Remember a lot of gaijins in Japan are there because they are misfits in their own countries.  Square peg types. A lot of them have figured out that Japan is a haven for those with no social skills or those who are considered odd by their fellow countrymen. Then there’s the JapanGeek factor. I certainly don’t want to waste a second of my life talking about robots to a Manga geek. Even worse is the chance they could be missionaries out to spread the good word. The last thing you want to do is start a conversation with a Mormon or Adventist. And there are those who have travelled far to get away from their countrymen.  So you’ve got to be careful who you talk to. Time and place is also important. Kyoto is about 40 mins drive from here. In Kyoto there are more foreigners than you can shake a stick at. Consequently I wouldn’t go out of my way to greet a foreigner there. Out in the boonies however it’s a different story. I would make an effort here. Paradoxically, these foreigners are the most likely to have the “I’m the village gaijin, get off my patch” attitude. Another foreigner could ruin their day. What’s your plan if he ignores you?  These days I take a hierarchical approach to this problem. I ask myself are these my kind of people? Best for me will be one of the commonwealth brothers. ie. English, New Zealander, Australian or Canadian. Of course it can be hard to tell before speaking to them. This being Japan the odds are they will be American but that’s OK as there’s lots of common ground and Americans are less likely to ignore you.. They might be French or Russian and not even speak English but that’s OK too. I find I can communicate with the Europeans like French, German, Dutch and Spanish whose languages have a common base that is similar to English. They mostly speak good English anyway. French people tend to have a bad reputation as unfriendly and unwilling to speak English but I find that I kind of like them. I can string a few words together in French and I have found that makes a great difference to their attitude. As for anyone else, it gets tougher. I remember having a fractured conversation in an Osaka Hostess bar with a Ukrainian girl with Japanese as our common language with a few English words thrown in here and there. Ruthless stereotyping is also great help. There’s no point for me to say hello to a Korean because they tend to be dour and humourless or Chinese as their language is totally impenetrable to me. There are a lot of Brazilians here but other than their appetite for partying and having a good time I don’t know much about them. Russians are notable for their total lack of English. A few years ago I used to see a sour looking Russian regularly at a car auction I go to in Nara. Every time I saw him I would say hello to him. His usual response was to completely ignore me so I made it my mission to elicit a response from him.  After about 2 months I had him up to the nodding stage. By the end of the challenge he was grunting and mumbling something. There are a couple of other things to consider.  Are they drunk? At night there’s a good chance. Do they look Hung over? In the morning, very possibly. So you can see, by narrowing down the field to those who you would really want to talk to and being prepared for  a possible snubbing  you can minimise the stress of this issue.