Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyororin
The teachers who I have encountered so far have bashed every little bit of Japanese culture. I don`t think it has all that much to do with English-teaching stress, as none of it has much of anything to do with English. Cultural ignorance? Yes. My point is - Do you really want to be around such negative people while you`re trying to learn the language? Do you really want to hear the other teachers make quips about "He just has penis envy! HARHARHAR" any time a Japanese guy glances in their direction? Or if you`re a girl (Like me) who happens to have a Japanese SO - being told you`re a "monkey lover" or that "you must like pencil dicks!" That is the type of crap I got sick of - and it was in no way confined to my coworkers. I`ve had similar remarks made to me by a wide range of foreigners I encountered back in my silly days of actually thinking I might make a friend, or find someone else in a similar situation as myself.
I *know* foreigners tend to be more "open" and "outspoken". I wasn`t born in Japan. There is a huge difference between being open and outspoken and being downright cruel and insulting - which is what I see far too much of. Pointing out differences is fine, but that isn`t where it stops. If your coworkers are wonderful and kind people who do not do those sort of things, consider yourself very lucky.
I guess I sound a lot like I`m snapping at you, but it seems the picture you are painting is far too sweet and pretty. I worked as an interpreter for quite a while. Most of the people I interpreted for were English teacher groups on break, touring Japan. I must have interpreted for around 400 to 450 people. Never once did I have a good experience. In fact, I had some of the worst encounters with people in my life - everyone hated Japan but felt they had to get one good trip around the country when they had the chance, so they could go home and say they "saw" Japan. To put in perspective how horrible most of these "teachers" were - an example: I was taking a group of 6 around, and at the end of the day we were having dinner. They asked about me and I told them I was married to a Japanese man, and had a son in the hospital. I was asked why I`d marry a monkey, didn`t I crave a big white dick? And that my son being sick was god`s way of telling me not to mate with animals. They all laughed at this, and continued on to ask which primate my husband resembled - an orangutan, like that guy over there? etc. Similar conversations happened almost any time I was asked about my personal life by a group. I stopped answering, but even without using my life as a starter point Japanese people and life was always ALWAYS insulted.
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After reading this post in particular I felt like I really related to it and you/how you must have been feeling. My fiance is Japanese/Filipino and I'm Caucasian and we recently came across some racism while playing some video games online. It started off with nasty comments about Asian people eating puppies and then turned towards me with similar comments that you encountered about my fiance's male parts *rolls eyes* I had honestly never encountered such infuriating ridiculous racist remarks before. After the anger subsided I just realized all I could do was pity someone so full of hate and ignorance. Anyway.. I just wanted to say that reading about what you went through really made me feel connected to your experience and I guess I just wanted to say that I can relate. I've really enjoyed reading about your story so far (I'm only about 4 pages into your thread) and am looking forward to reading more of it.
