誇りと偏見/ Pride & Prejudice

The life of a foreigner in Japan is at times a double-edged samurai sword. The Japanese, it must be said – and I’m sure it’s been noted by many others before me – are one of the most proud and prejudiced peoples in the modern world, and foreigners here, like foreigners elsewhere, will from time to time come up against some form of discrimination. Oddly enough foreigners from western countries often seem to be regarded as slightly more tolerable than those from Asian countries. At the end of the day, however, we are all more or less painted with the same old brush. Which is to say: we are dirty, and don’t know how to bathe properly; we are riddled with diseases such as HIV and Aids (our livestock are not much better); we are uncultured, evidenced by our fondness for imitating walruses by sticking chopsticks up our nostrils; and above all, we are not Japanese. Just ask those of Korean and Chinese descent who were born here and who have lived here all their lives but are not considered citizens and instead have special permanent residency visas.

We are not to be trusted. Consequently, things like renting apartments to us, or loaning us money, are very risky business. Earlier this year I made two separate applications for credit cards. Both were rejected simply because I’m a foreigner. “You do not have a credit history in Japan,” is what they told me. “Mighty tough to get a credit history without having first received some kind of credit,” I ventured. “Quite right, sir,” was what their response amounted to.

Last week I joined a gym. As part of the signing-up process I had to again apply for a credit card. As far as I could gather what’s supposed to happen is that I use the credit card to pay my gym fees and after that it’s up to me to repay the credit card company. The gym finds this preferable to simply withdrawing the money directly from my bank account. I asked my friend, who was with me at the time, why this was the case. What would happen, they pointed out, if suddenly there were no money in my account? “Why, they wouldn’t be able to get their monthly fees,” I answered helpfully. Bingo! said the look on my friend’s face said. “But,” I continued, “they could just cancel my membership.” The uncomprehending look that now came to my friend’s face suggested I had said something very unJapanese. Anyway, turns out it was just a mere formality. The staff member who was taking us through the paperwork said that as I was a foreigner I had Buckley’s chance of actually getting the credit card, and, as soon as that had been officially confirmed they would of course settle for the direct withdrawal method. This was Japanese bureaucracy at its finest.

Political correctness has yet to arrive in Japan. (This may or may not be a bad thing) I remember a conversation I had last year with a student (I’m a “teacher” at an English conversation school). We were talking about the soccer World Cup. The student said something like, “I don’t know any of the Australian players, they all look the same,” or something similarly arresting. I was too stunned to point out the irony of her comment. It was the kind of thing I’d expect to hear a bigot from back home to say about the Japanese team. Putting the wrongness of it aside, I’d actually be willing to accept her remark if say, for argument’s sake, the Australian side had consisted of only white-skinned, blonde hair, blue-eyed players. But that wasn’t the case. The Australian team that played at last years’ world cup was a very mixed bag with players of British, Greek, Croatian, Italian, and Aboriginal descent. They were black, white, and brindle. They were red-haired, blond-haired, brown-haired, black-haired and . . .well, you get the point.

In some ways it often seems as though this country is stuck back in the days when, fearing and loathing the foreign devils, they had voluntarily shut themselves off from the rest of the world (unwittingly missing out on the industrial revolution). Still today not a few have views and attitudes towards foreigners that would not have been out of place during the years leading up to the Second World War.

I recently read an article so completely outrageous that I could not help laughing. The article reported that in May this year “the All Japan High School Athletic Federation decided to ban foreign students from running the first leg of the All Japan High School Ekiden (a kind of marathon) Championships.” To find out why click here.

Now I did say that life here was a double-edged samurai sword. So presumably, one would think, I could rattle off a list of positive things about life in Japan that counterbalance and compensate for the kind of things I mentioned above, and which make living here a very rich and rewarding experience; and I can. But as it’s three in the morning that will have to wait for another post, forgive me.

Ja!
eyechan

PS: Today is my birthday. Ergo, for the next few days I will be in a drunken stupor. Ergo, no posting for a couple of days (not that there’s anything unusual about that).

Introducing Fukuoka

After posting about my recent travels I've realised something: In the year or so that I've been blogging I haven't actually posted a great deal about the city I've been living in for the past two and a half years. Clearly this is an injustice of the highest order and one which cannot be allowed to continue. And it won't. Starting from now I'll be doing a series of posts which highlight exactly what it is I love about Fukuoka.

Background~

Location: It's a port city in the north of the southern island of Kyushu. It's less than a two hour flight from Tokyo.

Population: approx. 1.4 mil.

Famous for: Ramen, fresh food, yatai (a kind of street vendor), an interesting culture, being close to Korea, a conveniently located airport (just 5 minutes by subway from the centre of the city), and, compared to Tokyo, a relatively low cost of living.

Infamous for: the worst drivers in the country (one of whom knocked me off my bike not so long ago). Not surprisingly it is the taxi drivers who are the worst offenders.

I thought a good spot to begin with would be here at the Naka River and the Fukuhaku Deai Bridge.

The water may be dirty, the buildings, some would say, ugly, but there's a certain charm and peacefulness here which makes it a great place to come to escape the crowded city streets with the hordes of eyeball-poking parasoled women, and the squadrons of kamikazean taxi drivers. Plus you can watch the fish jump out of the water, which is enough to keep me amused for longer than you might think.

At night these buildings, dressed up in billboards and neon signs, light up like Christmas trees bathing the river and the bridge in a romantic hue. Sometimes a saxophonist or some other kind of street performer will set themselves up and you can lose yourself in the ambient notes floating on the breeze.

These buildings mark the edge of Fukuoka's pre-eminent entertainment district, Nakasu. And that's where I'll be taking you next for a night of sake, shou chu, and as much mischief as you can handle. So I ask you: Can you dig it? I'm sure that you can, in which case be sure to come back soon!