Things had been quiet on the Gregory Clark front in recent months. Too quiet it seems, as the headline for his latest commentary in the Japan Times ジャパンタイムズ, "
Antiforeigner discrimination is a right for Japanese people", unfortunately lays it out all too clearly. You should read the entire article to see for yourself how the minds of some individuals work, but here are a few choice excerpts:
"'Japan girai' 日本嫌い — dislike of Japan — is an allergy that seems to afflict many Westerners here."
Right off the bat, Greg dismisses anyone who has any kind of complaint with some of the ways things are done in Japan. Sure, there are a lot of whiners among the resident foreigner population who would probably be happier living somewhere else (as you would find in any country), but there are also a great number of people who love Japan, and offer constructive criticism as a way to improve things for the general good. Greg doesn't see it this way, however. Instead, he yearns for those years not so long past when anyone who dared question certain aspects of Japanese society were quickly accused of "
Japan bashing" ジャパンバッシング in a clumsy attempt to avoid dealing with both the questions being raised and the person(s) raising them. Japan - love or leave it, right Greg?
"Normally these people do little harm. In their gaijin ghettoes they complain about everything from landlords reluctant to rent to foreigners (ignoring justified landlord fear of the damage foreigners can cause) to use of the word 'gaijin' 外人 (forgetting the way some English speakers use the shorter and sometimes discriminatory word 'foreigner' rather than 'foreign national.')"
First of all, the words "gaijin ghettos" conjure up images of Hiroo 広尾 and Nishi-Azabu 西麻布, and I find it hard to believe the corporate ex-pats living there had trouble securing accommodation. I, on the other hand, found apartment hunting to be a frustrating experience, and I was usually the only Westerner living in the neighborhoods where I eventually settled.
Secondly, what damage can foreigners cause that Japanese can't? Do we urinate on the tatami mats like pets not yet housebroken? I've known of foreigners with Japanese spouses, who presumably could properly train their barbarian mates, still being rejected in the search for somewhere to live simply because they were not Japanese. In Greg's view, if one foreigner causes problems in their rented abode, all non-Japanese should be damned. But plenty of Japanese people create a lot of problems for landlords as well, yet they are not turned away. To put things in an Australian context (Greg is from the Land Down Under), if one Aborigine trashed his/her apartment, would that mean the white landlord would be justified in only renting out their property to other white people (all the while overlooking the problems they have to deal with from their fellow Caucasians)?
Finally, for someone who criticizes others for hypocritically using the word "foreigner", it's all over his own damn commentary!
"Recently they have revived the story of how they bravely abolished antiforeigner discrimination from bathhouses in the port town of Otaru 小樽 in Hokkaido 北海道. Since I was closely involved, allow me to throw some extra light on that affair. An onsen manager who allegedly had earlier been driven to near bankruptcy by badly behaved Russian sailors had decided this time to bar all foreigners from his new enterprise. The activist then filed a suit for mental distress and won ¥3 million in damages. In the Zeit Gist and letter pages of (the Japan Times), some have criticized these excessively zealous moves by the activists. These critics in turn have been labeled as favoring Nazi-style discrimination and mob rule."
What Greg fails to tell us here, though he is clearly aware of the fact through his heated correspondence with the litigants in the past, is that at least one of those "foreigners" was a naturalized Japanese citizen! What Greg is suggesting, though he doesn't want to clearly come out and say it, is that even with a Japanese passport and family register 戸籍, if you don't look the part, it's OK to deny you the same rights as your fellow citizens.
"Otaru had been playing host to well over 20,000 Russian sailors a year, most arriving in small rust-bucket ships to deliver timber and pick up secondhand cars. I visited the wharves there, and as proof I harbor no anti-Russian feeling let me add that I speak Russian and enjoyed talking to these earthy, rough-hewn people in their own language. Even so, the idea of them demanding freedom to walk into any onsen bathhouse of their choice, especially to a high-class onsen like Yunohana 湯の原温泉, is absurd."
Greg really lays on the patronizing condescension here. And I thought one reason people emigrated to Australia in the first place was to get away from the English class system! This paragraph speaks for itself.
"The antidiscrimination activists say bathhouse managers can solve all problems by barring drunken sailors. But how do you apply a drunk test? And how do you throw out a drunk who has his foot in the door? Besides, drunken behavior is not the only bathhouse problem with these Otaru sailors. I can understand well why regular Japanese customers seeking the quiet Japanese-style camaraderie of the traditional Japanese bathhouse would want to flee an invasion of noisy, bathhouse-ignorant foreigners. And since it is not possible to bar only Russians, barring all foreigners is the only answer."
I guess there's just no way a gaijin could understand "the quiet Japanese-style camaraderie of the traditional Japanese bathhouse". Gregory Clark included, of course.
A few years ago, there were a couple of incidents of Japanese tourists carving their initials on the walls of old European cathedrals. Since it was not possible to bar only Japanese, would it have been OK for the authorities to have barred all Asians? Would that have been the only answer, Greg?
"The antidiscrimination people point to Japan's acceptance of a U.N. edict banning discrimination on the basis of race. But that edict is broken every time any U.S. organization obeys the affirmative action law demanding preference for blacks and other minorities. Without it, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama would probably not be where he is today."
I'm not sure the USA even signed on to the edict described above, but that is irrelevant, as is Greg's comparison. It doesn't matter what other countries do - Japan accepted the anti-discrimination edict, and is supposed to follow through on its promise.
Greg also completely misses the boat on the history of anti-discrimination efforts in the USA. What laid the groundwork of Obama's victory were the efforts of countless activists from the 1950's and '60's, and the enactment of the Civil Rights Acts barring racial discrimination in public places, schools and employment, voting, housing and so on (and the abilities and intelligence of Obama himself). And if the result of all this activism was the election of Barack Obama, is that something to be feared? What talented individuals in Japanese society would be able to move up the ladder if there were similar laws in Japan? What does Greg think of someone like
Marutei Tsurunen ツルネン・マルテイ? Would it be alright to bar him from a bathhouse?
"Sometimes their activism goes beyond even the absurd. Japan has long had a real problem of clever Chinese and Korean criminals taking advantage of Japan's lack of theft awareness to pick the locks and pockets of unsuspecting citizens. But when the authorities try to raise this problem, they too are accused of antiforeigner discrimination. Even companies advertising pick-proof locks are labeled as discriminators if they mention the Chinese lock-picking problem. Obviously Japan needs precautions against these theft experts. Many, myself included, dislike the fingerprinting of foreigners at airports. But this too is needed to stop criminally minded foreigners from re-entering Japan after they have been caught and expelled. If anything the authorities are too lenient with these people. (Let me add that I also have no anti-China feeling; I speak Chinese too.)"
Let's give Greg some credit here. At least he doesn't feel that white folks (and black people too, I presume) should be the only ones made to feel like second-class people - it's other Asians as well that have had the unfortunate luck of not being born Japanese. Yes, Greg, there are criminals active in Japan who come from China and Korea. But there are also a great many Chinese and Korean visitors (and residents) who would never involve themselves in such activities. And do you mean to tell us Japanese don't do these things either?
And yet another contradiction escapes Greg's notice. If he doesn't have any anti-Russian or anti-Chinese feelings because he can speak the languages, then does that mean all foreigners who can speak Japanese don't harbor any anti-Japanese feelings? If so, then those people can't be accused of being of having the "Japan-girai" allergy, right?
"It is time we admitted that at times the Japanese have the right to discriminate against some foreigners. If they do not, and Japan ends up like our padlocked, mutually suspicious Western societies, we will all be the losers."
As Greg sees it, Western societies made the mistake of trying to create societies where all their residents would be treated equally (it has yet to work that way, of course, but at least they're making the effort). We would all be better off if everyone knew their proper place in the greater social order.
