NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/soc/culture/japan/12689

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-21 | 4.1 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!usna!math3!wdw
From: [e-mail] (Wm. Douglas Withers -- math  FACULTY <[e-mail]>)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: Not a Myth at All
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 21 Dec 92 15:41:11 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Organization: U.S. Naval Academy
Lines: 62

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>     The bottom line, me freund, is that you need to spend a few years inside
>Japan but outside a tame g**j*n bubble.  What Mr. Brueckner reports is quite
>accurate.
>
>     Part of the reason is that it is an article of faith in the religion of
>Japanism that filthy nig. . .err, I mean, that g**j*n can't learn to speak
>Japanese.  When faced with a Japanese-speaking g**j*n, reactions may include
[Remainder of lengthy jeremiad concerning refusal of the Japanese to recognize
dcroz's Japanese skill deleted.]

If you find Japan to be such a hostile and uncongenial place, why do you stay
there?  I've seen a little of both sides of the coin.  On my first visit to
Japan in 1983 I was interested (though not resentful) to see that people
rarely addressed me in Japanese.  My Japanese ability at that time was rather
easily overwhelmed, anyway.

Much later on, I found the reverse to be true; people usually addressed me
in Japanese rather than English.  My Japanese had improved quite a bit;
could it be that people could tell just by looking at me?  A more likely
explanation IMHO is that in the past few years the number of gaijin in Japan
seems to have increased significantly; and the Japanese are probably more
used to seeing them as well as more used to the idea that gaijin can speak
good Japanese.  Characters like Kent Derikatto probably help also.

To summarize, I haven't found the phenomenon that dcroz complains about to
be much of a problem.  Indeed, to some extent, the reverse is true.  Try
this when you meet someone who majored in English at college:  "That's
interesting.  Say something in English for me."  Usually the response is
"Iie; zettai dame desu."  I've also usually found it easy, when I'm in the
mood, to strike up conversations with strangers on a train or elsewhere.

A couple of anecdotes may be slightly relevant here.  Once when I was
patronizing a bank in Tokyo, the person in line in front of me was a gaijin.
He was the type who embodies all the worst stereotypes of gaijin.  To begin
with, he was not very prepossessing of appearance, being rather fat with long
scraggly hair and a long scraggly beard.  He was trying to get something done
that the bank people didn't want to do.  The clerk explained to him several
times that what he wanted was impossible.  His answer each time was to shout
"Dekimasu yo!" and slam his hand down on the counter.  In the end, after
some hurried conferences, I think they gave him what he wanted.  Following
his act, it was even easier than usual for me to appear suave and charming.
Hmmm...you don't wear a beard, do you, dcroz?

Another time, a group consisting of me, my mother and her husband (complete
strangers to Japan) and two Japanese friends went into a Chinese restaurant
in Gotanda.  My mother and the two Japanese friends sat down inside while I
took my mother's husband outside to look over the little food models.  When we
went back into the restaurant we found that a drunk had wandered in and sat
down at the table with my mother.  (I didn't realize at the time that he was
just wandering around and thought that he had just come in for a meal.)  The
restaurant personnel and my Japanese friends were all trying to persuade him
to leave, with zero effect.  I went over to talk to him, thinking that I was
in for a REAL test of my Japanese ability.  Hah!  I bowed and said just one
word:  "Hajimemashite..."  Immediately he stood up and moved to another
table!  You could almost hear the wheels turning (rather mushily) in his head.
"Gaijin datte...shiyoo ga nai nee...."
--
Els Withers                   email: [e-mail]
Department of Mathematics     phone: [phone] / fax: [phone]
United States Naval Academy
Annapolis, MD  21402-5002     Senri no tabi mo ippo yori...