TV Hosts and Train Rides

Before I came here, I knew that I would look different than most other individuals residing in Japan, but I did not worry about the issue of ethnicity much. There is certainly not any overt racism or prejudice evident in Japan, and on a personal level there is not any kind of noticeable coldness or judgement.

Yet, there are some things that I have noticed. Anyone who is not Japanese or at least of full Asian heritage here really sticks out. The thing that I had heard of most before I arrived from past study abroad students was that they were stared at on the train and when walking around their neighborhood. Personally I have not experienced that so much, or maybe I just haven’t noticed if it’s happening, although I have heard from some of my friends here that they frequently notice Japanese people staring at them. Not in a particularly negative way, but just curiously staring. Although it seems a little rude, I guess I don’t blame them that much. Not that I do the same thing, but for example, there is one woman who I often see on TV who is half Japanese and half something else (maybe Caucasian?), and sometimes is an announcer on news programs, and is also on commercials for things like cell phones or household products. Maybe she’s famous for something, I don’t know. Anyway, she clearly grew up in Japan, as evidenced by her language and mannerisms, but she always sticks out a lot. I wonder if it is ever hard for her to live here and not be completely Japanese. I take racial diversity so much for granted at home, but I really see almost no non-Asians who grew up here, and hearing someone who doesn’t look completely Asian speaking Japanese like a Japanese person just seems weird. It’s not in a bad way, but you just notice it. Usually I pay almost no attention to the hosts of news programs (and I think they’re designed not to be noticed) but she is the one person I always remember.

What I have personally experienced the most, and which I think is the most revealing, is the behavior of people around me on the train. When I first noticed it, I thought maybe it was just my imagination, or maybe just a coincidence or something, but when I was talking to my friends recently I found that they had noticed the same thing. Okay, I am not an intimidating-looking person. I am a short young woman, the same height as most other Japanese people, and I shower every day, so it’s not like I smell or anything, and on the train I always have my backpack with me and wear headphones like most other students here. I am even part Asian, so although I have brown hair and may not be as skinny as the average Japanese woman, I don’t think of myself as so different. Yet, people do not like to sit next to me. Let me set up the situation. The trains that I ride have two long benches along each wall that face each other, and those are the only seats. Generally people do not like to sit next to each other, and are even a little too respectful of each other's personal space, to the point that they will go to great lengths to maintain at least a one-person distance between each person, as long as there is no one standing. So I get on the train at Yawata, and there’s still usually a lot of space when I get on, so there will be maybe 2 people’s worth of space between me and the next person. With each stop as we get closer to Kansai Gaidai, more and more people get onto the train, and gradually I notice the row across from me getting progressively more and more crowded, but...there will still be 2 people’s worth of space around me in either direction. Sometimes the row across from me will be completely crammed so that there could not possibly be room for one more person, but there will still be vast amounts of space near me. No one wants to sit next to me!

That doesn't happen every day, but it has happened many times. As I sit there, I watch people get onto the train, and I see them look at the spot(s) next to me, and then they look at the spot across from me, and then they almost always go for the spot across from me. What do they think will happen if they sit next to me? Well, I don’t think they think anything will happen, but they would just rather not sit next to me because I look different. It doesn’t really bother or upset me when they do that, but it does feel weird, and it reminds me that I am not the same as the community of people who live here.

To an extent I suppose I would do the same thing at home—probably, when I get on a train and have the option of sitting next to someone who looks more like me or someone who looks different (I don’t just mean ethnically similar here), honestly, I will sit next to the person who looks more like me. However, I think that I am much less extreme than people here are. I mean, unless the person looked threatening or drunk or something, I would much sooner sit next to the different person than endure the discomfort of pushing myself into a now overly-crowded row of other people. I don’t know. I guess this is what non-Whites feel like in more racist areas of America. (Or maybe in other areas too.) Although it doesn’t really get to me now, I can see how, if I had grown up with people avoiding sitting next to me, I could really feel alienated in this situation.

Maybe if I really took efforts to make myself look more Japanese (ie, lost weight, dressed better, wore more makeup) I would experience this avoidance less, but I suspect it would still happen to a lesser extent. My host mother frequently asks me if I am interested in living in Japan after I graduate from college, and I usually tell her that maybe I would want to live here for a few years, but ultimately I’d rather spend my adulthood in America. That it is where my friends and family are, and is also home to the foods and culture that I am used to. She points out that if I lived in Japan then I would build up friends and family here as well, and over time I would get used to the way of life, so I wouldn’t miss America anymore. What she doesn’t realize, and what I did not think of at first either, is how much courage it would take to live somewhere where you will always be different. It doesn’t matter how well you can speak Japanese or how much you know about Japan and its customs, because people’s first gut reaction upon seeing you will always be that you are not one of them.