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I am of South Asian decent and always though I would be fun visit Japan for awhile, since I watch a lot of anime. However, I have been hearing this rumor about Japanese being "closet" racists, especially people from Asia (Chinese, Indians, etc). Of course, I heard that outwardly all Japanese are very polite and curtiousto visitors.
I once had a sort of bad experience with this one Japanese man on an airplane. He gave very bad look for having been assigned a seat beside this daugther. He sure wasn't very happy about it. I guess he just might over protective toward all guys (no matter the race), but not sure.
Has anyone heard of this before? Or is this all just rumors I have been hearing.
Japan has been told to be a very homogeneous country. Their largest "minority" were Koreans.
I wouldn't call them racist, many of them are probably just not really used to non Japanese.
Hopefully things are changing with the younger generations.
What Americans consider to be racisim is almost a religion in many Asian countries. Japan is the most homogeneous society in the world, but that fact will change a lot in the next few generations. They will have to open the immigration floodgates, as their birthrate is too low to support their retirees in the future. Add to that the fact that they live longer than anyone else in the world and Japan is in for a demographic nightmare.
Asian countries can be very racist. Perhaps, Japan, is not as regressive as some other less deveolped nations ( Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia etc). The fate of many children of mixed race ,sired during the Viet Nam war, would be a prime example of racial issues in Southeast Asia. This is not to say that their attitude is any worse than other countries as this issue is NOT specific to Asian countries, but to answer the original question, yes, race issues exist conspicuously in the region. Even in Japan, though they are much more progressive, outwardly, than other nations in the same geographic realm.
Racism in asia can be more blatant compare to US because it's widely practiced there. Even in Singapore, one of the most developed & diversed asian countries, racism is still alive and well. Malay employers still prefer Malay employees, Chinese companies would hire chinese workers first before others, and the list goes on and on.
I think Japan's younger generation is more open and accepting to outsiders than their older ones. So if your plan is only to visit as a tourist, I'd say go ahead and enjoy yourself. If you do encounter racism, just chalk it off as bad experience and move on to more exciting experience ahead of you. After all, you'll probably be there for too short a time to notice anyway.
Can't speak for other countries, but I have friends in both Japan and India and their racism is blatant because it's not considered taboo like it is in other societies. Racial issues in Japan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Of course, wikipedia, while never a great source, might be a good start if you want to read about it.
Maybe you just look scary to him, no offense but I'd rather get to the simple stuff rather than talking about racism.
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