I find it interesting how Japanese people get fixated upon something like hair color as a touchstone of cultural identity, yet they seem to have more or less entirely given up on traditional Japanese clothing styles, in preference of Euro-style casual wear and suits. It’s weird how people process the compromises of what they will/won’t let override their culture.
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Cultural norms are one thing. Racial discrimination is another. Japanese of Korean and Chinese descent are viewed differently from racially Japanese people, and often have problems marrying into Japanese families. There is a strong strain of racial purity and xenophobia that informs some of the practices you’re talking about that inform ‘cultural’ norms.
That’s classic ‘othering’ of minorities that underpins racism around the world. Like the underclass is just not smart enough, sophisticated enough, good-smelling enough, classy enough to participate fully in society, so we just keep them apart so they don’t pollute the majority. We called that “Jim Crow” in the U.S. That sort of thing should always be pointed out and condemned, and it is not cultural relativism to do so.
I think that the Japanese are coming around on this, but very slowly. At least the Ainu have been finally recognized as a people.
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I’m generally in agreement with you, but two points.
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It’s perfectly reasonable for me to compare other culture’s to American culture as that’s my native one - and using terms like ‘behind’ is putting it in context of American cultural changes in terms of progressivism. I’m open to suggestions on alternative ways of putting it that aren’t incredibly clunky.
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It’s also reasonable to hold that ideals you hold to be important (inclusiveness, freedom of thought, equal rights) are universal ideals. I weigh this against the reality that Japan is a different culture from mine (although one I’m not entirely unfamiliar with), but simply ‘being another culture’ does not completely isolate any country from criticism. As an extreme example, North Korea is not simply ‘another culture’, but a totalitarian hellscape and most of the world would probably agree with that.
It’s notable that I don’t think Japan is so ‘troublesome’ that I find it deeply concerning enough to spend my time morally outraged about it or anything. Japan has entirely different problems with racial discimination/etc that the US has, so we can’t apply the same lens to it that we do to issues like ‘no Mexicans here’, as someone brought up earlier - there’s a history and culture in the US that add a much more sinister element to it.
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To add on, these are the people that were cool with hitler and hitler was cool with them (honorary Aryans cool (the whole lot of them)) and the only reason why they didn’t have a Nuremburg was because the U.S occupied them
(So then what happened, all the war criminals stuck around and ran a war time economy and then boom. . .Two Lost Decades) (it always goes back to hitler)
That is so ahistorical on all counts.
- The military alliance was nothing to do with political policy and in fact on more than one occasion when the Reich made policy requests of imperial Japan the reply was a very polite “mind your own business”
- The Japanese were not in fact honorary aryans. It’s a common misconception.
- Japan did have the Far East Tribunal which was similar to the Nuremberg trials. Both Japan and Germany were occupied post war.
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just to add to that, it’s where the expression “Class A War Criminal” comes from.
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This is pretty true. I’ve got a friend of the family who is genetically 100% Japanese, has dual citizenship, and pretty much speaks Japanese as a first language (due to growing up with parents who speak very little English), but grew up in So. Cal. He took a job in Japan, then got married to a Japanese woman, and is still known as “the American” among his peers at the company he works for…
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I used to think that way but my thinking changed the longer I lived here and understood things more. I don’t see things on the scale of universality or American standard now simply because things are so different and the history is so different.
There are things that are now being held up as universal ideals or rights that just didn’t exist 20 years ago. Some of what you mention is now seen as natural here but it doesn’t work the same as elsewhere. Some of what is understood as equal rights in the US has no context here at all and some of it the locals looked at and decided to do it their own way.
As you point out later, the same lens doesn’t work everywhere because history is different.
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- Mmm. . .okay
- What do you mean ??
- The documentary Princes of the Yen made it seem like way too many of them were left alone
3-1. But also, Germany’s occupation was more. . . “intense”, West/East split, ideology admin split, and then once united they mend ties with Benelux & France, and with Japan you don’t get that, with the Koreans . . . the Chinese (Nanking)
They didn’t get the same therapy basically
I’ve been living in Japan for more than 25 years. This issue jumps into national debate about every five years. There is often a lawsuit and some wringing of hands, but nothing changes.
Most Japanese do understand the irony involved in forcing students to dye their hair in order to comply with a policy forbidding students to dye their hair, and quite a few find it completely ridiculous. However, there is a certain Japanese logic to this.
The purpose of the dress code and the prohibition on hair-dying is to enforce conformity. Conformity is the larger objective here. So while forcing a student to dye her hair violates the hair-dye policy, it supports the more important conformity goal from which the hair-dye policy was derived.
BTW, I don’t agree with this way of thinking and don’t plan on defending it, but there is some logic behind it.
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Do you mean how the Japanese saw themselves as a superior race and set out to subjugate as much of the neighboring regions as they could reach? How they saw other races as inferior animals, and tortured, slaughtered and enslaved them without compunction? Yes, that is a pretty different history, and unfortunately it was not completely exterminated after humiliating defeat. There are such things as universal human rights, and the failure of Japan to really come to terms, with, for instance, the sex slavery of Korean and Chinese women to Japanese soldiers (the quaintly termed ‘comfort women’) is still a black mark on the Japanese.
As a gaijin, you may do your best to conform, be impeccably polite, and show respect for the culture, but you will never be more than a species of particularly tractable ape to the majority of Japanese. You may have come to terms with that, but it doesn’t change the reality of the persistence of the ideal of Japanese cultural and racial hegemony as a pernicious, persistent force in Japan. They don’t have to turn into Americans to enlarge the scope of who and what they will accept and tolerate in their society, and treat ‘others’ as equals.
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The relationship between the two empires had nothing to do with race at all. Japan and Germany had a long push/pull relationship before the Tripartite agreement. See Germany–Japan relations - Wikipedia
Let me quote from that on the only bit relating to race:
Pride in one’s own race – and that does not imply contempt for other races – is also a normal and healthy sentiment. I have never regarded the Chinese or the Japanese as being inferior to ourselves. They belong to ancient civilizations, and I admit freely that their past history is superior to our own. They have the right to be proud of their past, just as we have the right to be proud of the civilization to which we belong. Indeed, I believe the more steadfast the Chinese and the Japanese remain in their pride of race, the easier I shall find it to get on with them.
— Adolf Hitler, The Political Testament of Adolf Hitler, Note #5, (February – April 1945)
I don’t know that documentary but in fact as stated, that is not true. Read what @jerwin linked above about the IMTFE. Its a start.
The contexts are so completely different. You may think the German occupation was more intense but that would only show that you don’t know much about the occupation period here. Wikipedia has a start
As for regional post war relations in East Asia, in theory that was supposed to have been settled with the Treaty of San Francisco but in fact Japan ended up paying huge amounts to its former colonies as non-repayable development loans since by the treaty no formal reparations could be paid. How the governments of the RoK and the PRC used that is another matter. During Mao’s time and several leaders afterwards, relations between Japan and China were actually good.
TL;DR: history is complex.
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Lol no i read it all, I give my 2 cents and a get a silver dollar back, that’s why I’m here ^~^
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I won’t justify the actions of the Imperial era here any more than I can justify the same actions by Imperial powers of Europe and to a lesser extent the US. I can point out that where you say “was not completely exterminated” that in fact humanity is like that. It would seem that in the US the controversy around removal of statues of Confederate persons and how various parts of Europe see their respective pasts that history is rarely “completely exterminated”.
I’ll admit that I don’t understand how many formal apologies and how much in compensation paid will be enough to settle that issue. Also when people bring up that topic they don’t seem interested in the thousands of Japanese women who were also “comfort women”.
Tell that to my wife’s family in the countryside, our neighbors in Tokyo and in her hometown, to any of my Japanese coworkers, to the FSA inspectors I’ve worked with, the bankers who gave me a mortgage or even the uyoku-dantai types I’ve occasionally shared a beer with.
Of course I’ll never go native and I won’t say things are perfect for non-Japanese here but some of what you say here is pure myth.
It’s also normal to acclimate to your society, so I don’t find your change of heart particularly compelling to an outsider, just a fact of immersing yourself in a culture.
Sure, but again, I don’t find this to be a particularly compelling argument for why I can’t be critical to some degree of Japan’s treatment of outsiders and non-comfortists. Again, your argument simply doesn’t hold up on a global scale - there’s at least a short list of countries I assume you would also find concern with in regards to their culture and customs - North Korea being the obvious answer but certainly many middle eastern cultures are generally abhorrent in their human rights violations. I find many of those countries more abhorrent than Japan, but that doesn’t mean I can’t find fault with Japanese culture in a small way.
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I had a friend who spent ten years there and was a very respected teacher. I would even go so far as to say he was loved. He completely immersed himself in Japanese culture. His Japanese was excellent, and he went to great lengths to learn the culture and customs and strove to be very respectful and polite. He was often told that he acted more Japanese than the Japanese. When it came time for him to leave, he was honored with a wonderful going away ceremony, with a beautifully catered meal. He was asked if he wanted a spoon and fork to eat with.
Don’t fool yourself.
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But OTOH there are plenty of long term expats here and elsewhere that never do bother to understand their local culture and eternally complain about how much better things are in their homeland. Honestly few non-Japanese make it past the three year mark here anyway, most don’t last more than a year.
OK fair enough but in return I can point out that if you haven’t lived here you may be subject to some misunderstandings or misperceptions. I don’t mean that in a snotty way, just that some things are best understood by personal experience.
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Sounds like your friend had a good run here and at the end one person who maybe didn’t know him tried to go the extra mile to accommodate him and from that you want to tell me how to run my life?
Believe me, after 20 years I’m under no delusions.
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Really. There’s nothing more ridiculous than telling people that you cannot be as you are, and then telling them that you have to be a certain way in order to expand your mind and learn things.
But, then again, I guess that is a lesson in and of itself.
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I think that global population will increase due to medical advances and their increasing availability in less advanced parts of the world. Whether or not the global economy adjusts for the benefit of the majority of people remains to be seen. If it does it could be a new golden age of humanity. If it continues on it’s present course of “Fuck you, I got mine, give me more”, then I’m afraid things will likely get a lot more interesting…and probably not in a good way.
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