The other day I read an article in the Japan Times by an American guy who has lived in Japan a long time. In it he was moaning about the fact that despite his long residency and participation in his local community he is still seen as an outsider and a foreigner. Consequently his few long term friends are all fellow ex-pats. He feels that just because he owns a Japanese passport that the native people here should accept and embrace him as one of their own. It seems to me that anybody who thinks this way really needs to wake up and face reality.The first thing that I learned about spending any time in this country is this....
You are not Japanese and you never will be. You can think of it as the golden rule or being a foreigner 1.01....
This can be kind of difficult to grasp for westerners who come from countries where there are lots of immigrants. In NZ people show up from all kinds of countries and cultures and after being here for about 5 minutes proclaim themselves as Kiwis. Buy yourself an All Blacks shirt and we tend to throw in a passport with it. Australia is much the same...learn how to drink their awful beer and you've pretty much passed the citizenship test. Anybody can lay claim to being a Kiwi/Aussie/Canadian/American and therefore, these words have ceased to have any real meaning. A brilliant example of this is an idiot named Hameed Sooden who went to Iraq a few years ago to save some souls for his activist christian type group and got himself kidnapped by some members of an Islamic extremist type group. This was big news here in NZ because he was described as a New Zealander. The local media here had a field day over this poor Kiwi who was in great danger. But then a few facts came out. Mr Sooden is an ethnic Indian who is a Canadian citizen. His claim to being a Kiwi came from the fact that he has (in his Canadian passport no doubt) a NZ residency permit. His occupation was "a student". In short he is a foreigner with no connection to this country who came here to exploit our lax immigration rules and suckle on the cow that is the NZ taxpayer. He could have asked for help from the Indian or Canadian governments but of course he choose to sponge off the easiest one...NZ. When rescued in Baghdad by the British SAS he distinguished himself by refusing to co-operate with his rescuers and displaying a stunning amount of ingratitude to them. Sorry....Hameed Sooden is not a Kiwi in my book and should not be allowed to pass himself off as one. He is in fact an international mongrel/hybrid who flits from one nationality to another whenever it suits him. It's a shame that the Jihadist's didn't lop his head off. The Japanese have kept things clear and simple while we have devalued and debased our national identities by allowing all and sundry to adopt them at the drop of a hat.
Japan is not like this. It doesn't matter that you have lived there for 50 years, that your wife is Japanese, you speak fluent Japanese, the company you work for is Japanese, you live in a traditional Japanese house and wear a kimono on your day off. You can try all you want to look/sound/smell/behave Japanese but you won't succeed. You are and always will be a gaijin. Now lots of people get all pissed off by this and feel that this is a bad thing but I don't agree with that. When you hear of someones nationality being described as Japanese you are in no doubt as to what to expect that person to look/sound/act like. I am in no doubt that this is a good thing.
You're dead right!
ReplyDeleteSome people proclaim themselves as true representatives of the nation not even remotely being familiar with the subject matter. In fact, this is quite typical for politicans and other morons whose the only intention just to exploit some certain benefits, which come with it as a "compensation" to the "national drawbacks". And obviously, they repudiate the nation with ease, when it's the time to face any disadvantages of being a "one of them". In nature this type of behaviour is well-known to parasites.
Best bit of advice I got from guy who'd live in Japan for over 20 years - they don't want you to be Japanese, they want you to be yourself.
ReplyDeleteI wonder though in Australia (or NZ), if we really are as inclusive as we think. You can call yourself an Aussie 5 minutes after you get off the plane but if you are say a Muslim mother sending your kid to a real white bread school, do you get treated like any other mum? Do you get asked to join the mother's committee and all those other activities? I'm thinking not because I still see lots of ethnic groups stick together.
I think it's a lot harder for women to intergrate than men, esp in cultures where women still have traditional roles.
If you are a guy and you have to go out to work, you learn the language and customs real fast but a woman at home raising kids doesn't have these opportunies.
You even see it with older Greek and Italian women here who have lived in Australia for decades. They never had the chance to pick up language skills and often are widowed and reliant on their kids to translate for them.
two thumbs up, mate!
ReplyDeleteI met a Korean girl on a plane whose sister married a Kiwi. She showed me the photos o the wedding. Some Chinese fellow who had stayed after his student visa had expired. Had no idea what number 8 wire was and never would.