[Tsuwabuki]

Originally Posted by clintjm

My god man.. enjoy the sites and put the laptop away then... the forum can wait.
I don't want to be the cause of ruining your trip.

I only respond in the morning and at night when I am in my hotel anyhow.

love and kisses my friend. Just trying to bring you down a little off the high horse you ride. It is difficult.

This is exactly the type of behavior that is not welcome in an academic discourse. Just drop the witticisms, they are not welcome.

You are welcome to go back through all my posts and try to find where I say "Japan is problem-ridden where non-Japanese are "accosted" on a daily basis. Never said accosted.

No, but the original posters that you agreed with did say this. They talked about incidents with employers, administrators, and police. I don't just mean accost in the sense of actual assault and battery. I mean harassed.

My words clearly say that foreigners will always be treated by foreigners by Japanese in Japan by Japanese who simply do not know them. This treatment varies from person to person but I agree it is not "accosting" / agressive or challenging. That is simpy not the Japanese way (again in general).

And all I ever said was how is this an issue? I've said repeatedly that this doesn't become a problem, but you try to argue that is.

The point is that Foreigners will have the initial "special treatment" and will have to continually prove themselves in their career and any non-short term social interaction.

And how is this any different from the expectations anywhere else in this world? If someone isn't improving, they don't get promoted. That's pretty simple.

This behaviour is not always deliberate either... it is simply a lack of knowledge by the other party. A recent personal example My personal favorite is eating in a public setting (at the same table with strangers) and have them look at in you in awe as you use chopsticks. The will speak right in front you to the other person beside them and say "wow he can use chopsticks very well... I'm surprised"... mind you I wasn't pigging out...
Nothing was said, and it might of been embarrising if I struck up a conversation, usually to best let it go and move on. But if you are constantly hit with these little things on a daily basis, depending upon the person and personality ... it grows on you - whether it is of having no intention or good-intentions.

This is where you and I differ. This rarely happens, but when it does, it is usually directed at me not said around me. In the beginning, I had coworkers tell me they were amazed by my ability to use chopsticks. I looked at them like they were crazy until they finally asked about my facial expression. I said I had been using chopsticks since a small child, asian food is very common in American kitchens, and that it makes about as much sense as an American being surprised the Japanese can use forks, which is to say, no sense at all. I've never been asked about it by a coworker again. I didn't do it in a hostile or defensive manner, in fact, if I recall, I was quite "cheerfully perplexed" by their comments, but it certainly got the message across clearly enough.

In the rare instances where people talk about me as if I am not there, I do strike up a conversation and tell the offending parties that I am quite capable of this or that action, and it's rude to talk about people as if they're not there. In Japanese, of course. Rarely is this adults though. My kids sometimes forget I speak Japanese, and I remind them, with a verbal tap, that this is not the case, and they're not just in my classroom to learn English, but also to become better global citizens. However, again, these situations are very rare.

I don't expect this to change and for it to never happen in for Japan to not to be Japan. All I was saying in the other thread is to expect these eventual displeasantries while being a foreigner in Japan.

As long as you also admit this is not a regular occurrence that must be dealt with over and over on a daily basis, as it sounds like right now you are saying.

To be fair I suppose special treatment should have been defined to not come across as accosting, but the examples already presented in the thread were non-accosting examples.. except when you compared it to being accosted by the KKK and the Hiroshima memorial.

They were? As I said, I seem to recall instances, and I can go back and find them, where the issues I had were with truly horrendous actions, like the comment about constantly being pulled over by the police. That's maybe not physically attacking someone, but it is clearly harassment.

My points speak from themselves ... I sorry you don't like the way they are presented.
The are obviously taken seriously for this thread to go on this long.

No points speak for themselves when we disagree. If we agreed, then yes, perhaps they would.

And the thread has gone on because I've never been able to choose my battles wisely, definitely one of my flaws. Now I do it with words, but there was a time I would meet bullies, after just so much bullying, by breaking their noses so they would never harass me again. I never did get around to being able to see if that whole "ignoring" thing actually worked.

Next time I'll push the Quote with Thoughts button vs the Quote with Advice button then.
My mistake.

Words matter. They are different words because they have different meanings. Don't be so glib, especially in a written environment where other factors, such as tone, can not so easily be communicated. If I had wanted advice, I would have asked for it. There is no other way to say that.