[Editor]

Sadly there are discriminations against Chinese and Korean in Japan. I think it stems from the fact that the “trust” has been lost over the years due to the negative facts and incidents caused politically and historically including unreasonable political demands, propaganda and bringing discredit by the both of the 2 governments.

So some people may look at you in a hostile manner(if they think you are Chinese or Korean). Also, ignorance is another issue. Japan is an island, one-race country throughout the history and it is not familiar to many people to see British born or American born Chinese/Korean.

Below points are the main feelings that can be seen on the net which would come up in one’s mind when he/she first meets the foreign person.

To Caucasian: Inferiority complex, envy, cool looking, advanced culture. Stems from the brainwash by GHQ in post WW2 era.
To main land Chinese: self-centered, ignorant, crafty largely due to the communist China’s policy, also because of how they act based on ideology “Chinese ethnocentorism.”
To other Asians: undeveloped, looking down(sadly because of the inflation of foreign workers after the post war economical development of Japan in 1970s also influenced by western racism)
To Latin American: similar to the one about other Asian. There isn’t a strong cultural tie.
To Middle eastern: oil rich, terrorist, Muslim. People are largely ignorant about it.
To African: Largely stereotyped. Savanna, lion, that sort of stupid things. It’s either joke or ignorance.

However, the bottom line is that there is very little discrimination against foreigners in the personal level as long as the one respects the culture and tries to understand the way things are, and live in harmony with Japanese people. This is just like those who are always good and respecting people in any culture according to any standard.

Japanese is the culture of honor, humbleness and respect. Trust is something to be born, not made.

I don’t think anyone likes someone that behaves in a particular way and tries forcibly to apply that to other culture and criticize it or even try to change the surroundings instead of changing yourself without trying to adjust. Personally I think this tendency(negative impression to negative behavior which may even lead to strong resentment) is the cause of discrimination in any culture which is sadly accumulative, sustainable and easy to create negative stereotypes. Pretty reasonable I think.

So in the first encounter, you may feel people have negative impression about you but as long as you stay respectful, humble, polite, thoughtful and sensible, people would be the same to you.

About Caucasian people treated better, Sangetsu explained that well except for the part “that they could not have been defeated by an inferior culture.” I think that’s misleading. There is no inferior culture. Some maybe better off economically but the Japanese mentality is that all the people are equal and there’s no better culture or worse.