11/13/2003?@?@The Word Half

Let's face it -- Japan is a racist country. They try to hide their behaviour behind the curtain of ?ecultural difference?f but the truth is that there are deeply ingrained racist attitudes on the part of most Japanese. Newspapers often report eyewitnesses at crime scenes saying that the criminals were ?eforeigners?f, only to have the perpetrators caught a few days later, and it turns out they are all Japanese. A politician last year, before the World Cup, said that Japan has to prepare itself for foreign football fans raping Japanese women, and another politician said recently that Japan should curb tourism because foreigners commit crimes. The fact that elected members can stand up and say such garbage and not be kicked out of the party shows how easily Japanese people accept racism.
My students often tell me it?fs because Japan was a closed country for so many years, that it is not used to foreigners. Well, perhaps they have a point, but there have been non-Japanese people here for at least 60 years. It is time to get over it.
One thing that bothers me, more so now that I married a Japanese woman and plan, one day, to have children, is the term ?ehalf?f. Half what? This is what is commonly called a person with a Japanese parent and a non-Japanese parent. It?fs used in everyday speech as well as on the news (there was an election recently in Japan, and one of the candidates was referred to as being half, since her father was Australian) and most people don?ft seem to find it offensive. It?fs hard to imagine NBC news calling Mariah Carey ?ehalf?f, or even, for that matter, mentioning her ethnic background at all.
When I bring this point up with my wife or my students/friends, they often ask me ?eWhat do we call a person like that then??f My answer is ?eHow about their name??f

11/26/2003
One of the paradoxes of Japanese culture is that Japanese people will say that they are very polite, perhaps too polite. And while it is true that there are elements of politeness in Japan that we don?ft have in North America, and the language tends to be very polite, there are some rather rude things that drive me nuts.
For example, most Japanese people have no problem with just pushing past you without saying excuse me or even acknowledging your existence. Toronto and Nagoya have roughly the same population, and yet I?fve been knocked into, pushed aside and brushed past so many times in Japan that I can?ft even count them. Nagoya station, the major train station, is a nightmare. I will be standing still, leaning against a wall waiting for someone, and in the course of 20 minutes will be brushed against or hit with the edges of bags without a simple excuse me or a sorry. I?fm standing still! I?fm also 6?f2 and about 240 pounds, so it?fs not as if I?fm hard to see.
The same with getting on and off trains and getting in and out of elevators. Far too many times have I been trying to get off a train or out an elevator and someone knocks into me. The really fun times are when I?fm waiting for a train, standing in line, and people from behind me cut in front of me and push past people getting off the train to get on the train. Not only are they cutting in line, they are also not letting people get off the train first before they get on, which I assumed was a basic tenet of civilization, along with wash your hands after you use the bathroom and don?ft eat your young.
An ex-coworker of mine lived for 2 and half years in New Zealand, where he became used to the ?eladies first?f rule, as it is sometimes called in Japan. He flew back to Narita airport and at an escalator he let a woman go first. She didn?ft look at him but went ahead, followed by about 8 other people who pushed past him and didn?ft say a word. He then that he was back in Japan.
I think the real problem here is that people don?ft get angry in Japan. They don?ft even get miffed, and shying away from confrontation seems to be the rule rather than the exception. In Toronto if someone pushed past me to get on the train while I was getting off, I would say something. It?fs hard to imagine that happening. I should learn some Japanese swear words, or even how to be sarcastic, and use it. Maybe I could start a revolution.