I was sitting around a little while ago when one of my buddies pulled up. We started talking about out old military days when he started telling me about the problem he had while serving in Japan. I myself was stationed in Germany and I simply LOVED it over there. The Germans were really nice people to me, and they are really one of the main reasons why I stayed in the service for so long.
He was telling me about all the bad experiences he had in Japan and how he hated it over there with a Passion. He says that the Japanese were trying with all their might to drive the U.S. out, and how he was made to feel unwelcome almost everywhere he went (especially on the island of Okanawa). He tells me that the three years he spent over there were three of the worst years of his life and how he’d never go back there again for as long as he lives.
I thought to myself “Japan can’t be all that bad can it?”. I’ve asked around from a few other people that have been over there and almost all of them say the same things. None of them seem to have any fond memories of the time they spent there, and none of them seem to be eager to go back anytime soon.
Who on this site has ever been there? Can Japan really be all that bad? Tell us about your experiences over there and what you think of them as a nation a nd their views about the U.S. (and be honest)
I’ve only ever visited, but most Americans and other westerners I know who’ve lived there find the people fine.
Okinawa hosts a lot of the US military in Japan, crammed into a small place. Local people resent it because the US uses a huge chuck of the land. Two incidents in the last 10 years or so in which schoolgirls were (a) raped and (b) run over by US servicemen didn’t help.
Japan is not a multiracial country, and their traditional beliefs are probably rather xenophobic. (eg, landlords often won’t rent to non-Japanese, local police forces issue public announcements warning people about foreign residents and the crime risk that they supposedly present. Citizenship for non-Japanese is extremely difficult to acquire.)
Generalizing … The Japanese believe they are unique - a separate branch of the human race. And they tend to look down on other Asians. But they don’t seem especially anti-US or anti-Western.
Why wouldn’t they? It seems nowdays everone hates the US (including many Americans on this board). My god, even our bestest buddies Canada and GB seem absolutly pissed at us lately. Just like in elementary school one someone gets picked on everone cant help but join in.
Bunch of unoriginal fucks IMO. Same guys who think McDonalds resturants are the cause of all the words health problems…
That’s an over-statement. It’s not exactly easy, but neither is getting citizenship in many other first-world countries. Here’s the relevent law:
Appart from the fact that Japan does not recognise dual citizenship, the biggest problem, IMO, with the above rules is that they are too vague, not too strict. (“Upright conduct”?) One of the reasons many foreigners don’t bother is that they don’t want to lose their home country nationality and permanent residency gives you most of the day-to-day rights citizenship does anyway.
The problem with generalisations is that they’re not terribly useful at best. There are plenty of people (mostly younger folks, though) who think Korea is cool. Right now, many business people are obsessed with China… There are also biggots like Tokyo governor Ishihara. There are just too many people, who hold too broad a range of opinion to draw any sort of conclusion about what “the Japanese” think.
Of course, you nailed the most important point in regard to the OP’s friend’s experiences. Okinawa is small. Also, Okinawa is to a somewhat large extend fairly distinct, culturally, from the rest of Japan.
If you look at statistics taken about Okinawans’ opinions on the American bases, you’ll find them split about 50%-50%. Half of the people see them as either useful or necessary, and half see them as either unnecessary or harmful. What’s interesting is that more women are opposed to them than men. It doesn’t mean, however, that 50% of people in Okinawa are happy about the bases being there, some may see them as a necessary nuisance.
I am in Japan at the moment - my father being stationed on the USS Kittyhawk, and I have found the Japanese people to be more polite and friendly to Americans than most other nationalities.
Even the protestors that occasionally show up in front of the base are polite enough, more so than anti-war protestors in the States. My parents had no trouble at all renting a house from Japanese landlord either. Of course, this is in the Yokosuka region, not Okinawa, so YMMV.
Where? Okinawa? Unfortunately, I’ve never been there.
Japan is my country of residence and has been for several years now and probably will be for several more. It is, IMO, one of the better places to live on this Earth. Unless you’re in Tokyo. Living in Tokyo sucks. IMO. YMMV.
It may be just a localized thing that your friend experienced.
I have been to Japan twice. The first time was a homestay for a month near Nagoya. The second time was a study abroad program at a college in Kanazawa.
Without failure, every single Japanese person I interacted with was extermely polite and kind to this big, bumbling foreigner.
One of the main differences in my experience than that of a typical person was that I was dealing almost exclusively with younger Japanese people. Honestly, they loved me there and were completely fascinated by my existence. You don’t often see 6’2" tall blond hair blue eyed people roaming around in the semi-rural areas near Kanazawa, so I was somewhat of an oddity to them, but in a good way.
I never felt hated, in danger, or unwelcome at any point in my visits to Japan.
From my trips to Japan, I think you can make this assumption:
The Japanese dislike jerks.
The nationality of the jerk is irrelevant.
If you’re not one, you really won’t have a problem.
Japan doesn’t get as many North American or European tourists as you would think, so you a Westerner is far more likely to stand out in a crowd, even in places like Tokyo or Osaka.
Okinawa is the largest of the Ryukyu Islands, about 800 km southwest of the south end of Kyushu Island. It was occupied by U.S. forces from the end of WWII until 1972. When I was there in 1975, Japan was actively promoting it as alternative to Hawaii as a honeymoon/tropical vacation destination. I don’t know how successful the effort was.
It was my understanding that “mainland” Japanese regard Okinawans as bumpkins.
I have never been to Japan, so what I say may not be worth much…
I was told by several Japanese that military personel - even Japanese - are disliked or shunned by many people. It isn’t so much anti-Americanism - but its due to very deep feelings of antimilitarism or pacifism. Plus a spate of bad behavior involving some American military personel in recent years doesn’t help.
But this is almost entirely targeted at military personel in certain areas.
Although it is changing, most Japanese are still extremely xenophobic. While most Japanese do not hate Americans, they just look upon them as lower than themselves. They will, for the most part, be polite, although if you live there longer and try to get more rights and respect from them, you will find yourself up against a huge wall.
I have many friends who have lived in Japan for years and many more who are planning on living there for the rest of their lives. All of them love it, despite the racism they have encountered.
For the record, Japanese citizen ship is not determined by place of birth, but by one’s parents. You could be born in Japan, speak only Japanese, go to school and grow up in Japan and still not be considered legally Japanese. You have to apply for citizenship to take place.
I’ve worked with many Japanese people in Japan and in the US. Never had an inkling that they disliked us. In fact, I was surprised to see the title of this thread!
Of course, you would have a hard time finding out if someone disliked you. Japanese society is polite by nature. It’s not some sort of conspiracy, where someone thinks one thing about you but says another. Japanese people grow up with the habit of being polite to each other and to us. This can feel weird to a modern American, because we are more suspicious of politeness.
I also have to say that every country disagrees with something in the American experience. The rest of the world does not love us unconditionally. Deal with it! Like the French: French people are not sitting around hating American 24/7. Some French people dislike the US. Some like the US. Most are not thinking about the US. The men are probably thinking about sex, or soccer (or both).
French people love some US stuff, hate some other US stuff. Every French person I know loves our business climate. I know tons of French software engineers who are making their career here because things are so much happening here more than there. French people love our natural beauty. They like some of the food, but not all of it; I’ve yet to meet a French person who liked our cheese or even the cheese we import from France. I say this to show that French people are very picky about food and will tell you.
People everywhere in the world are about 95% like you and me. Of the remaining 5%, I estimate that I envy about 1% of what they have that we don’t (like fresh crepes on street corners in the city) and I’m glad that we don’t have the other 4% (like really high taxes, class consciousness, and dog shit all over the streets).
I hate to keep on harping on the “generalisations suck” cliché, but you just can’t make statements like the one above. What is that supposed to mean, anyway? That there is a single person living in the mainland and that he thinks people in Okinawa are bumpkins? Or that at least 51% of people on the mainland think they are? Or, what? Seriously, there are about 130 million people living here. Some of them may think Okinawans are lazy, some may think they’re laid back and cool, some may think they’re the nicest people, many may just not care… In my experience, however, most mainland Japanese view Okinawans as people who come from Okinawa prefecture.
What is it with Americans? So many of us seem vaguely obsessed with whether or not other nationalities “like us”. As though, as 633squadron pointed out, everyone else in the world does nothing but sit around all day thinking about the US. I even catch myself doing this- I always wonder if someone will dislike me simply because I’m an American. Is this some little-known cultural hang-up, or what? Do other nations worry about this too?
Anyway, Japan. I’ve been there twice, once for a whole month’s stay with a host family, and from my own personal experience, no one disliked me specifically because I was American. A few people in Tokyo specifically disliked me because I was a tourist- but they disliked the Japanese people I was with for the same reason, so you can’t ascribe this to any sort of xenophobic tendencies on the part of the entire country. (And no, it isn’t because Japanese people hate tourists. Try standing on a busy street with a camera in your hand from New York to Kuala Lumpur and watch the disgusted locals give you the eye.) That said, you find basically the same attitude to foreigners that you’d find in most First World countries, an odd mix of the following:
Pride that people from all over the world are coming to your country as a land of unparalleled opportunity;
Distrust of these people and their strange foreign ways;
Fascination with the cultural artifacts like food, music, and fashion they bring with them;
Worry that allowing foreigners in will somehow damage the economy, undermine the stability of the government, cause crime rates to skyrocket, destroy the sense of social harmony, bankrupt the welfare state, and/or put natives out of jobs;
Annoyance with the language problem.
Your average response to the new kid, I guess. Japan is no different. People love to go on at length about the homogeneity of Japanese culture, and throw out mysterious terms like uchi and soto, and work themselves up into a really bitchin’ sociological lather about the whole thing. Whatever. Yes, there are certainly cultural differences, and they can be surprising and upsetting and whatnot, but there’s this underlying humanity to all of it that’s impossible to avoid, and this translates into all people everywhere being simultaneously fascinated by and distrustful of anything new. It also means you will run into your fair share of assholes, as assholery knows no earthly allegiance, so you may find the odd person who really hates you just for being American. But on the whole people will be friendly and curious. Just don’t ever go against the flow in the Tokyo subway or you will be killed horribly to the delight of all commuters.
Well, my sister-in-law just got back from her first trip to Japan last week. She had hosted a Japanese guest who was here on business, and the guest invited her to come stay for a week. Sis said that everyone she met was cordial, interested and polite, although not terribly gregarious. She quickly learned not to openly admire things, as the Japanese people kept trying to give them to her as gifts. I should note though that my sister-in-law is a good tourist - wherever she goes, she attempts the language and pays attention to the customs, and as a result has made good friends in Japan, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, as well as England and Ireland.