The beauty contest winner making Japan look at itself
120 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;47881638]Pretty much the same issue as Miss America, except the US is a huge country. Japan is tiny and has huge population issues which are only made worse by the rampant xenophobia.
[editline]5th June 2015[/editline]
It's a problem when people see it as a diminished state. You're not "fully" Japanese if you're hafu, you're only kind-of part of it. It's xenophobia, pure and simple.[/QUOTE]
My wife is 'hafu', has always considered herself full japanese, and has never seen it as a derogatory term mr.know it all.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;47882612]The Japanese have their own "indians" in the north called the Ainu. They basically committed cultural genocide on those people.[/QUOTE]
Ohhh but isn't anyone living in Japan Japanese?? How can you genocide yourself??
It all falls apart now doesn't it buddy.
[QUOTE=VietnameseCat;47882611]She's not Japanese because she's not Japanese, even the Japanese know this.[/QUOTE]
The Japanese also don't consider members of the Japanese diaspora to be Japanese so the issue is more complex than race and ethnicity.
[QUOTE=thisispain;47882626]The Japanese also don't consider members of the Japanese diaspora to be Japanese so the issue is more complex than race and ethnicity.[/QUOTE]
Stop making rubbish up that you know nothing about.
You geniuses on SH love to spout about how 'incredibly xenophobic' Japan is without ever having lived there or even stepped foot in Narita. Some older Japanese folk might be more xenophobic but you'll be hard pressed to find rampant xenophobia within the younger folk, it's not 1942 anymore. Most Japanese people can give a shit less what country you're from.
[QUOTE=VietnameseCat;47882631]Stop making rubbish up that you know nothing about.[/QUOTE]
I think anyone fair-minded will agree I've done a better job demonstrating the little that I do know than you have, but alright buddy.
[QUOTE=thisispain;47882638]I think anyone fair-minded will agree I've done a better job demonstrating the little that I do know than you have, but alright buddy.[/QUOTE]
He's actually right you know.
[QUOTE=InvaderNouga;47882636]You geniuses on SH love to spout about how 'incredibly xenophobic' Japan is without ever having lived there or even stepped foot in Narita. Some older Japanese folk might be more xenophobic but you'll be hard pressed to find rampant xenophobia within the younger folk, it's not 1942 anymore. Most Japanese people can give a shit less what country you're from.[/QUOTE]
I haven't called anyone xenophobic, I said that the Japanese government doesn't consider diaspora Japanese to be Japanese which is true.
Ive never been to japan but i know for sure that when a non japanese looking person is spotted on the street theyre immediately mobbed by crazed xenophobic japanese who try to stab them
[QUOTE=Garlickeh;47882659]Ive never been to japan but i know for sure that when a non japanese looking person is spotted on the street theyre immediately mobbed by crazed xenophobic japanese who try to stab them[/QUOTE]
Dude my neighbors would always run inside and lock the doors whenever I left my house, I think they put up curse wards and shit too to keep me away. Those kooky xenophobic Japanese, lol!
she's obviously a Japanese citizen that was born in japan, that should be more than enough to call her Japanese. Just like an African from Africa born in Ireland. Irish born African.
idk why you are even bothering with VietnameseCat though they seem like a gimmick/troll account
My 2 cents
from being born in a coastal town in Japan (and making repeated visits for family) I can soundly say the Japanese are not xenophobic as in, 'hurrdurr lock your doors and windows', not to mention Tokyo is a huge hub of foreigners mingling with the Japanese population
there is however, certain things they would keep foreigners from doing like entering hot springs not because of ignoring Japanese cultural norm, but instead be caused by bad repeated incidents of foreigners doing things that doesn't fit within common ettiquite
Now, regarding on how I've seen Japanese reactions of foreigners, they'll instantly recognize a foreigner and feel more like "oh look a foreigner" rather than "wtf gaijin pls go"
As far as the article goes, I always found Miss Universe contests catering to western beauty standards, so for some reason I've noticed the last couple Miss Japans being not looking as ethnically Japanese as someone you would find in Japanese fashion magazines or commercials. (Again though, I've always attributed this to catering to the western perception of beauty)
I'm sure some idiots do think Japanese people go around looking for foreigners to beat up or whatever, but that's really besides the point that there are documented problems with discrimination towards, for an example, people who consider themselves or are considered of Korean descent. It's a problem Japanese social-scientists note themselves, and all societies have issues like these.
To isolate the problem down to individual people going around stabbing "gaijin" isn't logical nor is it realistic.
I think people immediately associate xenophobia with how you find it in, say, the United States or France (which is literally panicking at the sight of anyone that looks or talks different and consider it a massive threat to everything all the time) but that's not the only way xenophobia can manifest itself. It can be a very discrete and passive ensemble of notions and perceptions of "outsiders" which, while not directly causing clashes and tensions (ie you won't see a random Japanese citizen flip their shit and insult some random guy because he's not from Japan), still exist and are still very common.
Japan is a quite small archipelago that has a very specific identity and culture, so it makes sense that the people who live there would be more inclined to protect that culture through a passive demarcation of what is and what isn't Japanese, down to who your parents are and what you look like. If nothing foreign can enter your culture and be associated with its name to its full extent, then the culture will be preserved somehow longer.
IE I think it comes down to a sense of insecurity where people feel the need to associate themselves with their culture and disassociate anyone who doesn't seem like they fit so that they may feel like they still have a grasp on their own little world. That kind of train of thought tends to be very discrete and latent in society but it can lead to some pretty bad results on the long run.
Long story short, people want to protect their culture so they disassociate other people from it. Using the term "hafu" to designate someone who only has one Japanese parent is part of this process of disassociating them from the culture.
[QUOTE=VietnameseCat;47882611]She's not Japanese because she's not Japanese, even the Japanese know this.[/QUOTE]
Just because I'm not 100% Scottish doesn't mean I'm not a Scotsman. Unless the Irish, English, Welsh, Belgian, and German make a difference, I'm Scottish. Born and raised in Edinburgh.
[QUOTE=Moustacheman;47882809]Just because I'm not 100% Scottish doesn't mean I'm not a Scotsman. Unless the Irish, English, Welsh, Belgian, and German make a difference, I'm Scottish. Born and raised in Edinburgh.[/QUOTE]
Well as we can plainly see, not every culture has the same ideas about nationality. I was born and raised in Europe but my parents don't consider me European.
Although it's posted in the news section of BBC, it reads a [i]lot[/i] like an opinion piece IMO... not unusual for a Japan article, but that doesn't make it any less improper.
Is the term different from something like "African-American"? It implies a different culture, but it's used solely based on skin color.
I know it's not really the rage of this topic but can I point out I find the term "Miss Universe Japan" ridiculous as hell?
Like, claiming somebody is "Miss Universe" as in the prettiest woman in the universe, it is silly on it's own, but when you say "Miss Universe... Japan" it further falls apart. The prettiest woman in the universe from Japan? The prettiest in the Japanese universe? What is this even meant to be? It's so stupid.
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;47882802]I think people immediately associate xenophobia with how you find it in, say, the United States or France (which is literally panicking at the sight of anyone that looks or talks different and consider it a massive threat to everything all the time) but that's not the only way xenophobia can manifest itself. It can be a very discrete and passive ensemble of notions and perceptions of "outsiders" which, while not directly causing clashes and tensions ([highlight]ie you won't see a random Japanese citizen flip their shit and insult some random guy because he's not from Japan[/highlight]), still exist and are still very common.[/QUOTE]
While as rare as anywhere in the first-world, this can still happen and has happened to me a few times over the span of many years. It's really no different from discrimination in Europe, but of course in both cases, the frequency of overt discrimination varies greatly upon region.
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;47882802]Japan is a quite small archipelago that has a very specific identity and culture, so it makes sense that the people who live there would be more inclined to protect that culture through a passive demarcation of what is and what isn't Japanese, down to who your parents are and what you look like. If nothing foreign can enter your culture and be associated with its name to its full extent, then the culture will be preserved somehow longer.[/QUOTE]
It's the same issue in many other countries, also countries that aren't typically framed as insular. For example, the same debate exists in Norway, where many people think that you're "not really Norwegian" if you don't have Norwegian ancentry or fulfill any number of other varying requirements. The idea of ethnicity evolves over time, but the present state of ethnicity in Japan is far from unique, and it should go without saying that it is also diverse; people have different ideas about what it is to be "Japanese".
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;47882802]Using the term "hafu" to designate someone who only has one Japanese parent is part of this process of disassociating them from the culture.[/QUOTE]
This can be the case for some but not all. Different people mean different things when they use the term, and many people really don't mean anything exclusionary by it. It has been argued (IMO successfully) that the term has inherent exclusionist nuances, but I think these inherent nuances are lost on many who wield the term.
Equivalent terms with neutral nuances do exist; the woman in the article can also be described as アメリカ系日本人 (amerika-kei nihonjin, American-Japanese) but the Japanese language favours shorter words in colloquial use. I think it's unfortunate that ハーフ (ha-fu) is the term that settled, but discrimination of ha-fu is a widely recognized issue in the population and they are typically presented in a very positive light by the media and in education, and I feel that the ha-fu themselves are increasingly defining their own identity. It wouldn't be right to dismiss the term as it is the term they embrace themselves. I'd like to add that critics of the term are typically proficient English speakers; I really think the negative implications of being "half" is usually not understood by most japanophones.
[QUOTE=thisispain;47882573]Chinese isn't a race in the first place.[/QUOTE]
So is Japanese?
I dont know about where the fuck did you get such twisted terms of raciality, ethnicity and nationality
I was born and had lived my whole life in Estonia, but I am not of Estonian ethnicity. I am half-Russian half-Georgian ethnically. I am of white race and am of Estonian nationality.
The girl is not purely Japanese ethnicity, and its a fact. The problem here is that she is being discriminated because of that.
[QUOTE=Dark RaveN;47882954]The girl is not purely Japanese ethnicity, and its a fact.[/QUOTE]
It's not that clear cut. From the article:
[quote]Well of course she is. Ariana was born in Japan and has lived here all her life. She knows little of her father's home back in Arkansas in the United States.[/quote]
It's safe to say that she's 100% culturally Japanese. Ethnicity is not always defined by genetics and the definition varies from culture to culture and changes over time. To many, she's just as "Japanese" as the next person.
[QUOTE=Dark RaveN;47882954]So is Japanese?
I dont know about where the fuck did you get such twisted terms of raciality, ethnicity and nationality
I was born and had lived my whole life in Estonia, but I am not of Estonian ethnicity. I am half-Russian half-Georgian ethnically. I am of white race and am of Estonian nationality.
The girl is not purely Japanese ethnicity, and its a fact. The problem here is that she is being discriminated because of that.[/QUOTE]
Chinese and Japanese aren't comparable categories; while the Japanese racial group is constantly debated (called the Yamato) as a distinct genetic group, "Chinese" itself isn't because a huge group of different genetic, linguistic, and cultural groups could be called "Chinese." The Han are far from the only group recognized as part of the Chinese nation by the People's Republic of China, and have no more claim to being "Chinese" than the Zhuang or Hui -- that's how the government recognizes them too under the "56 ethnic groups of China" slogan. Chinese itself isn't even a language, it's a huge category of languages many of which are mutually unintelligible.
My twisted terms of "raciality," ethnicity, and nationality come from the fact that I follow standard terminology as set forward by scientific standards, I'm like a linguist or whatever so I'm supposed to.
"White" race isn't something considered very descriptive anymore. The point is to be as accurate as possible. Ethnicity itself is part of a cultural and social network which binds you to a group. No-one can tell you what you identify as, that's something for you to figure out but there is a difference between the old deprecated physical classification of race and what we call ethnicity. Ethnicity isn't necessarily bound by genetic ancestry, as there are many ethnic groups which are bound by religious or cultural traditions; one example would be the Jewish identity which is split into thousands of genetic groups, e.g. see the issue in Israel where they granted right of return to Jews living in Beta Israel even though they as dark-skinned Ethiopians are very far removed genetically from say European Jews.
I think she's ethnically Japanese because she considers herself to be a part of the Japanese nation, and it's not up to me to tell her she's not part of a social group she's integrated within; I'm not sure if the United States even considers her a national which in case she isn't means she can't be a part of any other nation anyway. Whether she's part of the Japanese racial group isn't up to me.
[QUOTE=InvaderNouga;47882636]Some older Japanese folk might be more xenophobic but you'll be hard pressed to find rampant xenophobia within the younger folk, it's not 1942 anymore.[/QUOTE]
Not sure what you mean about this. It says right there in the article that one of her friends at school commited suicide because of how much he was ostracized by other kids.
[quote][i]Growing up in a small city in western Japan, Ariana experienced it at first hand. Her best friend at school killed himself in part because he couldn't face being treated as an outsider all the time.
"We used to talk a lot about how hard it was to be hafu," she says.
"He wanted to talk about why we are excluded from others three days before he died.
"He used to say it was very difficult for him to live. He could not speak any English. People used to wonder why he did not speak any English despite his looks - he looked very foreign to them."[/i][/quote]
[QUOTE=thisispain;47883007]
I think she's ethnically Japanese because she considers herself to be a part of the Japanese nation, and it's not up to me to tell her she's not part of a social group she's integrated within; I'm not sure if the United States even considers her a national which in case she isn't means she can't be a part of any other nation anyway. Whether she's part of the Japanese racial group isn't up to me.[/QUOTE]
While I mostly agree, I don't think it's correct to equate ethnicity with nationality which is in effect what you just did with this rhetoric (although I'm guessing it wasn't intentional). For an ethnic group to have a corresponding nation, a political aspect is required, even if it does not manifest itself as a nation state. In the case of the Japanese ethnicity that implies the Japanese nation state (Japan), but as ethnicity and nationality are not necessarily integrated, whether the USA or any other nation state considers her a citizen/national or not is irrelevant, which is where the argument breaks down.
An example would be the so-called 在日韓国人(zainichi kankokujin, lit. "Koreans in Japan") who often have dual identity, both as Japanese nationals and ethnic Koreans.
As an aside, as she is a Japanese citizen by birthright she has knowingly chosen away her chance at American citizenship, this is for sure.
As far as I'm aware, race and ethnicity is more or less the same thing, just on a different scale, and they both concern physical appearance. Then you have nationality which is another thing entirely, and it's very common to attribute ethnicity with nationality for obvious reasons.
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;47883098]As far as I'm aware, race and ethnicity is more or less the same thing, just on a different scale, and they both concern physical appearance. Then you have nationality which is another thing entirely, and it's very common to attribute ethnicity with nationality for obvious reasons.[/QUOTE]
Maybe it's mean to bring this up but that might be a linguistic problem. In the US English I use race and ethnicity have two wildly different connotative meanings, and it's not considered correct language to conflate the two. Ethnicity in the US doesn't have any association with physical appearance, because for example Africa has over a hundred ethnicities yet they are conflated as one race in English writing.
The only term I know in French which is comparable is perhaps "origine géographique" but that's possibly politically-correct French and not in wide usage, I dunno.
[editline]5th June 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=jA_cOp;47883077]While I mostly agree, I don't think it's correct to equate ethnicity with nationality which is in effect what you just did with this rhetoric (although I'm guessing it wasn't intentional). For an ethnic group to have a corresponding nation, a political aspect is required, even if it does not manifest itself as a nation state. In the case of the Japanese ethnicity that implies the Japanese nation state (Japan), but as ethnicity and nationality are not necessarily integrated, whether the USA or any other nation state considers her a citizen/national or not is irrelevant, which is where the argument breaks down.[/QUOTE]
That's true. I was mostly just saying that she's more "Japanese" than she is "American," which is flawed reasoning.
Well regardless I think we can all agree on the fact that Japanese is an ethnicity/nationality and not a race.
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;47883098]As far as I'm aware, race and ethnicity is more or less the same thing, just on a different scale, and they both concern physical appearance.[/QUOTE]
This just isn't true. Race is separated based on perception, while ethnicity concerns identity and social integration. Ethnicities are not subgroups of races or anything of the sorts. Ethnicity is a useful tool in various sciences, while race is only interesting in science insofar as the notion itself can be studied, usually with a historical perspective.
It's true that ethnicity can also concern physical appearance but it is not a requisite of ethnicity in general, while race almost exclusively concerns physical appearance.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
