If it was the case with just one person, I would have let it go but I have met 4 people like this at this point!
All of them had these few things in common -:
1) Really patriotic and have a strong sense of Japanese national identity.
2) Are men
3) Very anti foreigners especially 🇨🇳
4) ONLY HANGOUT WITH FOREIGNERS?
I met 4 such men before moving from the city I currently live. 2 of them lived in the same hostel as me.
They were not very public about their views on foreigners, but would either post about it on social media, or tell it to me directly in private.
But the weird thing was how all of them were always active in international activities around the area.
One of them started his own club to make the life of foreigner's easy in Japan, and would sometimes rant that he only makes foreigner friends and never Japanese friends. That got me even more curious as to why was he socially and personally contradicting himself so much.
Another one of them told me that he thinks foreigners who live in Japan should not get any benefits from the government and should pay taxes as a gratitude for being able to live here, and his dream was to remove people from 🇨🇳. But at the same time he made me promise that I won't tell other people in our international friend group about his thoughts, and he was also bring creepy towards my 18 year old Chinese friend (He is 24M).
Is there a specific group of people in Japan who are like this? Or is there a term to describe them?
Note-: I have no hard feelings for either of them. Apart from these radical views, they were pretty nice to everyone around them (including me).
It could be because they are not 'normal' and thus have difficulty in normal Japanese situations. Foreigners often have a hard time differentiating between cultural differences and a Japanese person who is just legit weird (this also exists with weirdo foreigners and 'normal' Japanese as well).
Often times more nationalistic people make friends with foreigners because they want to show them how great their country is (not inherently a bad thing). It's often less about mutual understanding, and more about 'spreading' Japanese culture. But yes, what you describe is a bit odd. Many times it is a 'fetish' and as the saying goes, the lines between love and hate, pain and pleasure, are drawn very close. Also there are plenty of Japanese who want to make 'international friends' but want to exclude certain countries (i.e., CN in your example).
Truth is, people (not just Japanese) are often very contradictory in nature.
Low self-esteem and/or inferiority complex. When a person has no personal achievements or abilities to be proud of they default to being proud of their ethnicity, which starts you off with point number 1. As for point number 4, hanging out with foreigners gets them attention that they can't get from fellow Japanese, because as we established with point 1 they have nothing to get praise for except for being Japanese. This also gives them an opportunity to boast about Japan, which validates them in their patriotism. They are anti-foreigner because they cannot feel any sense of superiority unless there is a percieved inferior for them to denigrate.
Such people are typically not intelligent enough to have the self-awareness to even notice their own hypocrisy.
They are essentially "Gaijin Hunters" with a nationalistic DLC.
They hate the idea of globalism but love the attention they get from non-Japanese people who don't know their reputation yet. They can’t make Japanese friends because Japanese people can smell their toxic vibes from a mile away. You’re basically their "social refuge."
Makes sense. Got some advice for foreigners on how to see the difference between gaijin hunters and normal people that are just interested in being friends?
Just my opinion, but the biggest “filter” is language and context.
If you can hold conversations in Japanese and join local hobby/work/community groups (not only international meetups), you’ll naturally meet more people who aren’t fixated on “foreigners” and are just there for the shared interest.
It’s not easy, of course—but stepping outside the expat / international bubble helps a lot. And this isn’t unique to Japan; it happens in many countries when you’re new. Good luck!
This seems like the best explanation.
This… also applies to many Japanese women who only date foreign men
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Yeah, this just comes across just as intolerant towards autistic people.
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Removed for the same reason as above.
Can you say more about what the OP describes hints towards autism?
I’m assuming they are referring to the tendency of some/many autistic people to have rigid, black and white thinking. It’s a common trait. But not enough to diagnose random people with…
Posts made in bad faith or push certain agenda are not allowed. r/AskAJapanese is a neutral place. Do not push your ideologies on others.
悪意のある投稿や、特定の議題や思想を押し付ける様な投稿は禁止です。 あなたのイデオロギーを他人に押し付けないでください。
Please refrain from unchecked medical comment. If you have a qualification then please let us know, but you still need to word much better.
You're banned for the reason htat you're a repeat offender for this specific reason.
Tbh tho, there are a lot of creeps within the Japanese who hang out a lot with foreigners' communities....
So yeah, I would just not mind them if I were in your shoes.
Yeah, unless they are reasons, such as they grew up abroad (so they might prefer to communicate in ENG than JPN), there aren't that many reason for JPN person to seek out foreigners.
It is common everywhere. Example from Britain. Old chap expressing concern about dark coloured people in the UK. 'But what about your friend Steve' 'What about him, he is just Steve, how does he enter this discussion?' [EDIT] to be 100% clear Steve was/is black.
There is a Japanese language teacher who makes videos on IG that I was introduced to once by a friend. Seemed cool for the 5 minutes I talked to him. After following him for a while, I noticed he really likes to be down on certain foreigners ("bad" tourists from specific countries like 🇨🇳), otaku (foreign and Japanese alike), and is generally a tool. Despite making content specifically for foreigners, he is often dissing foreigners, and those that continue to follow him seem to get some superiority trip out of it, like "hey I'm in his circle, I'm better than them too." It's really strange
I'm always suspicious of people who only hang out with foreigners and don't have something that would explain it, like having spent significant time abroad. It usually means that they don't have any Japanese friends, and there's usually a reason for that which quickly becomes apparent. If all their friends are people who just moved to town in the last few months, it's a sign that people don't like hanging out with them anymore after they've gotten to know them. I've met a few people like this, and they weren't nice people at all, but they were able to fake it for a short time or conceal the worst parts of themselves from people who couldn't communicate with them that well. (This is not by any means exclusive to Japanese people.) Basically once people got to know them better, they would disappear.
どこの国にもインターネットで都合よい思想を流す組織がいるんだけれども、１２３を読むとその思想に洗脳された人に見えます。４は日本人から疎外されている性格の人を表していると思います。
Even among US born perfect English speaking Japanese this exists strangely...
Japanese people who don’t have any respect for Chinese diaspora are ignorant and shallow people who have never experienced Sinophobia or don’t empathise with how Sinophobia can affect other non-Chinese Asians. (Many Japanese diaspora have experienced Sinophobia, around the world).
… and usually don’t have any understanding about the Tatemae/Honne that Chinese people practice when it comes to Chinese politics, because those ignorant Japanese people are so Heiwa-boke.
Frankly, I wouldn’t trust such Japanese people. It’s the worst kind of two-faced attitude. I known similar who later have been convicted of fraud.
If a person can’t be consistent with their respect for human rights, they only deserve the most minimal of respect.
Sounds like they have a foreigner fetish to me.
hostels probably don't attract the most normal people, so that may explain it? like who willingly lives in a hostel? only someone down on their luck or who literally can't find any other place to live. also you can't control how others think and behave, the only thing is to better choose who you hang out with. if you keep making friends with weirdos maybe you should work on your people skills?
I knew someone would somehow put the blame on me🙃. Why don't you read the note at the end of the post?
Odd response. There wasn’t any blame accorded to you at all.
Japanese people don’t tend to live in hostels. This is already rather ‘fringe’. It’s non-standard. Go to different places, you’ll meet different types of people.
IDK about everyone else, but
clearly reads like a veiled insult. The title clearly states it's only 'some' people not all, so this clearly wasn't required.
But maybe English isn't their first language lol.
what "blame"? you made friends in places that attract certain people so you meet certain people. isn't that easy to understand? if you made friends at university campuses for example you would probably meet very different people.
I was doing Master's in engineering at a designated national university in Japan with a full scholarship and there also I met similar people...
Hi sorry I can’t answer your question specifically.
But thought I’d just say — please keep in mind there are lots of great people here. Just like any country, there will be bad apples and there will be people who can become great friends.
Keep an open mind and remember new people you will meet are likely to have a very different background from yourself. And also, back to your post, if you are meeting creeps and so forth — just remove yourself from the situation!!!! There are lots of other people you can spend your time with. Don’t waste your time on people who are disrespectful.
Political views and social circles are basically unrelated. Look at it this way: it’s incredibly common for people who act all "open-minded" toward foreigners politically to be the most xenophobic ones in their actual behavior behind closed doors.
White fever?
Here's my take on it. People are people no matter where you go. Essentially you're describing prejudices that people have. It's not exclusive to Japanese people. While living abroad for a decade, I noticed it tends to be by a race or a nationality, whereas other times it can be by region such as northerners vs. southerners religious groups, or people that are handicapped. Here in the US, it's generally a mix of all of these. It's a big place. I feel Japan is the same way.
With that being established, the first friend has to realize he's putting himself in a place to meet and make friends with foreigners. Whether knowingly or not, you become who you associate yourself with. In this case, he probably picks up some habits or mannerisms from being around foreigners. I've met a lot of Japanese people who are not exactly the most tolerant of differences. He's probably encountering the same thing, and is taking the easy way by becoming friends with the people he's around, but also feels like a foreigner in the group since he's not a foreigner.
The second friend just seems prejudiced towards Chinese people. He seems jealous about the economics of China now vs. Japan now. He mentioned people having to pay, but not getting anything in return. This implies that foreigners and the Chinese have enough and should be grateful to be in Japan.
Japan used to be the world's second strongest economy but has been on a downward trend for several decades now. There is no true hope for recovery unless something changes drastically. China has replaced what Japan was economically, but culturally they couldn't be more different. So to this guy, he sees it as the Chinese in Japan have to work less and gain more than the average Japanese person when the real issue is global trends shifting away from Japan to China as the major economic force in the region. The result is the guy is frustrated he does not have the same opportunity as the people he dislikes and feels he's getting screwed because of it.
Ignorance is a curse upon many people. I hope you don’t come to a conclusion upon the whole ethnic group by the actions of a portion.
Never met the single one in 25 years, also so you barely make even any sense.
Get a life and go touch some grass bro. You’re toxic as f
Idk why but your post history explains a lot
Patriotism is kinda the norm for most people. To some extent. Western intellectual circles I think view it as a kind of primitive belief I think. But I think that's limited to their circles really. Outside that I think some degree of patriotism is just a hardwired human belief. Tribalism if you want to call it that.
It's also a misconception I think, that patriotism means someone hates foreigners. In fact I think many people can be strong nationalists but still have interest in and respect for other cultures. (They just prefer their own). It's much like how many hardiness religious types don't hate the members of other religions even if they vehemently disagree with the religion itself, all things considered, they'd rather you just convert to their religion, since they think it's better for everyone.
Fairly standard opinions. There's a misconception that foreigners don't have to pay taxes. (And I agree that foreigners should pay taxes because they are using government services.) As far as benefits go, I think it depends. I don't think newly arrived foreigners should qualify for government assistance outstanding exceptional circumstances. (Because if you allow that then people will come and take advantage of it and it strains the system for everyone else). Long term and permanent residents however basically should qualify for many things they've already paid their way so to speak. Most people unless they've lived in another country really only have vague ideas of what hoops foreigners need to jump through anyway. Good example of this is you'll see all the helpful English translations that are unintelligible machine translated nonsense but they think it helps foreigners. They've never lived abroad and haven't had to actually use these.
Seems normal to me? Id say it's more and more common in the west now for young people to make a lot of assumptions about what people think due to the polarized political climate. Like a racist might hate everyone other than his own race for example. Most racists I've met really only hate one group of people and usually they've had a lot of experience with that group which shaped their opinion.
Which is to also say there's an assumption that racists also "hate" people. Which I find is far from the truth. Most educated westerners I've met over the years are quire "racist" in the sense they think people from developing countries are lesser and can't achieve as much. Or would we call that classism? Id argue it's basically the same since slavery was really a class issue that just happened to get conflated with race in the west. These people generally don't have any hateful attitudes towards "their lessers" though, quite the opposite they will bend over backwards to help them. Things don't clearly fit into the holloywood movie ideal I think.v
Play the same taxes, get the same benefits. This is what most people would find normal. In fact it’s what happens pretty much all around the world, including Japan. (Keep in mind “benefits” are not handouts; it includes healthcare, access to this or that grant, etc.)
Paying taxes and getting nothing in return other than “just be thankful lol” is bananas.
I'm talking more specifically about welfare or disability support payments for people who otherwise can't work. I'm not necessarily opposed to these benefits being available to foreigners depending on the circumstances, but I don't think they should be available to people who have a very short history in Japan. Like students, recently arrived workers. Etc. I don't think they are eligible for such as it stands now though.
Otherwise people who have been paying into the system for a long time, I don't see any reason to treat them any differently based on their nationality. Just that if there are loopholes that say, allow someone to apply for full living assistance welfare payments immediately after arriving with no work history, then those loopholes need to be closed or else people will find them, take advantage of them, and strain the system.