Love hate relationship with Japan..

[WingsToDiscovery]

Originally Posted by evanny

well then just tell them to bring you a menu in Japanese if you are so desperate to show off to other people that you have invested the time and speak their language.

or even better. stop bitching about pointless stuff - you can read it can't you? SO WHAT IS THE DAMN PROBLEM?! food doesn't taste the same if it is not spelled out in Japanese?

Does this reality really get you that hot because Japan isn't the perfect society you imagine it to be?
Actually, the food might taste different because it's damn near impossible to read the menu and pronounce the food correctly if it's not at least in katakana (when ordering foreign food), so you may just end up not getting what you ordered

[evanny]

i have no bubble dreams about Japan and it's society and never will. only dream i have about Japan is finding some run-down looking, obscure ramen shop with the perfect noodles that will bring me to tears when i eat them
what gets me are annoying people who basically nitpick. specially the likes of you - obviously suffering from some sort of received attention deficiency. you feel the need to show everyone around you that you are BETTER that the rest of the gaijin - that is from where comes your menu bullshit. and that is annoying because any normal person would just STFU.

[godwine]

Originally Posted by WingsToDiscovery

And the "fear" that Gaijin will wreck the apartment or whatever is not a legitimate reason. It's labeling the entire group of foreigners as, dare I say it, barbaric.

And you think this type of stereotyping doesn't exist outside of Japan? Its even far more vocal in North America.. I grew up with people making fun of Chinese driving, assuming that I can't speak English.....

[WingsToDiscovery]

Originally Posted by godwine

And you think this type of stereotyping doesn't exist outside of Japan? Its even far more vocal in North America.. I grew up with people making fun of Chinese driving, assuming that I can't speak English.....

I don't think it's different socially, but in most other first world countries you have the right to complain and have that complaint heard. Try pulling some crap like denying a minority person an apartment in the US based on their race and see what happens.

[WingsToDiscovery]

Originally Posted by evanny

i have no bubble dreams about Japan and it's society and never will. only dream i have about Japan is finding some run-down looking, obscure ramen shop with the perfect noodles that will bring me to tears when i eat them
what gets me are annoying people who basically nitpick. specially the likes of you - obviously suffering from some sort of received attention deficiency. you feel the need to show everyone around you that you are BETTER that the rest of the gaijin - that is from where comes your menu bullshit. and that is annoying because any normal person would just STFU.

How is being racially profiled bullshit? How is that nitpicking? It's hardly an attention deficiency to expect to be treated equally in a first world country, and being dealt with in the language of the country you're in. When you find that perfect ramen shop, don't be mad when you're handed an English menu because you can't read Japanese, and a fork because you can't use chopsticks, and a "thank you" in English when you leave because you can't speak Japanese.

[evanny]

lol. in my country every single tourists expects us to speak english. italians usually want me to speak also italian. well most of us do speak english.
i imagine all of the tourists would be pissed off i people here would only speak latvian.

and yes those are too high expectations you have for being treated equally. you are visiting a country in which 99.999% of all gaijin speak other languages. only that 0.001% knows japanese or even less. so, if you had to bet on a horese? which one would you chose? the one with 99.999% chance? well if you are not a retard you will. so will businesses who are interested in their client satisfaction.

[WingsToDiscovery]

Originally Posted by evanny

lol. in my country every single tourists expects us to speak english. italians usually want me to speak also italian. well most of us do speak english.
i imagine all of the tourists would be pissed off i people here would only speak latvian.

and yes those are too high expectations you have for being treated equally. you are visiting a country in which 99.999% of all gaijin speak other languages. only that 0.001% knows japanese or even less. so, if you had to bet on a horese? which one would you chose? the one with 99.999% chance? well if you are not a retard you will. so will businesses who are interested in their client satisfaction.

I don't know how you do things in your country, but in my country, we address people in our own language first, and adjust ourselves if necessary. If a hispanic looking man walked into my store, I wouldn't racially profile him and immediately start speaking in Spanish first without even seeing if he spoke English first. For all I know, he might not speak a lick of Spanish. Where you live seems pretty backwards.

I'm not saying it's wrong to use English if the customer has proven himself incompetent in the language. But only after rather than racially profiling.

[GoNative]

Originally Posted by godwine

And you think this type of stereotyping doesn't exist outside of Japan? Its even far more vocal in North America.. I grew up with people making fun of Chinese driving, assuming that I can't speak English.....

I just have to say that I hate this sort of argument. As though by pointing out there is bad elsewhere that somehow legitimises or excuses bad stuff occurring somewhere else. I mean in China you can be jailed for having opinions that the government doesn't agree with. Does that mean that it would be ok if something similar happened in Japan? No of course not.
From time to time there are incidents in Australia that are racially motivated. Does that mean that no Australian can ever be critical of racism outside of their country? No of course not.
As far as I'm concerned things like racism are universal. Every country has it. Most countries at least in legislation have laws to protect people from it. One issue I've always had with Japan is that there is very little legislative protection against discrimination and racism for non-Japanese residents and citizens.

The UN has expressed concerns over this numerous times. This from wiki

In 2010, according to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Japan's record on racism has improved, but there is still room for progress.[31] The committee was critical of the lack of antidiscrimination legislation in the country and the treatment of Japanese minorities and its large Korean and Chinese communities.[19] "There seems to have been little progress since 2001," when the last review was held, committee member Regis de Gouttes said. "There is no new legislation, even though in 2001 the committee said prohibiting hate speech is compatible with freedom of expression." Many members of the committee, however, praised the Japanese government's recent recognition of the Ainu as an indigenous people.

Lack of legislation allows discrimination to continue and actually somewhat legitimises it.

[godwine]

Originally Posted by GoNative

I just have to say that I hate this sort of argument. As though by pointing out there is bad elsewhere that somehow legitimises or excuses bad stuff occurring somewhere else. I mean in China you can be jailed for having opinions that the government doesn't agree with. Does that mean that it would be ok if something similar happened in Japan? No of course not.
From time to time there are incidents in Australia that are racially motivated. Does that mean that no Australian can ever be critical of racism outside of their country? No of course not.
As far as I'm concerned things like racism are universal. Every country has it. Most countries at least in legislation have laws to protect people from it. One issue I've always had with Japan is that there is very little legislative protection against discrimination and racism for non-Japanese residents and citizens.

The UN has expressed concerns over this numerous times. This from wiki



Lack of legislation allows discrimination to continue and actually somewhat legitimises it.

Well, i wasn't justifying it, and again, I don't consider it a Racist remark, just generalize.. you are not wrong, just because something happen in another country doesn't mean that it should elsewhere.. .and i am not saying that its right to not rent an apartment to a foreigner, just that I understand why....

We are getting way off topic.......

[GoNative]

Well all the racism stuff aside I might add another thing I love about Japan. I like Nyororin loved the safety aspect. It's sort of hard to describe to people who have never lived in such a place what it's like to live without fear of crime. I know there's some crime in Japan but in a small country town in Hokkaido it was practically non existent. In all the years I was there I never heard of one house being broken into, not one car being stolen. Not one mugging. I never locked the doors on my house and rarely locked the car. To live without any fear whatsoever of any sort of crime is pretty amazing. Not too many places in the world where it's possible.