Japanese People

Upon thinking about this week’s blog’s theme – Japanese People – many questions come to mind. What does it really mean to be Japanese? Coming from America, the definition of what it means to be “American” is very loosely defined. Peoples from numerous ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds are all considered to be “American” by generally accepted definitions. Whether recent Lithuanian immigrants or 3rd generation hispanics, they are thought of being part of the rich cultural fabric of American identity. However in Japan I find that what constitutes being “Japanese” is defined in a much different manner. Many 2nd generation 在日韓国人 (Koreans in Japan) who have been born with Japanese names, grown up going to Japanese schools and speaking Japanese, are still required to carry with them 外国人登録証 (foreigner identification cards), and can be legally arrested if found in public without carrying them (a very interesting novel and movie regarding this topic is Kazunori Kaneshiro’s “Go”) . To the vast majority of Japanese people, the hundreds of thousands of Brazilians who work in Japan their whole lives will never by any definition be Japanese. I find this to be a very fascinating subject.

So then the question remains, how do you define who exactly is a Japanese person, and who is not? Who falls under the definition, and who is omitted? What are the defining requirements? If one were to create a list of requirements, exactly how many have to be met to be considered Japanese? Brainstorming a list of this sort, I have thought of a few possible requirements:
- Shared ancestry
- Country of origin
- A shared language
Based on various conversations I have had with Japanese friends, my previous host family and international students, in general for someone to be considered “truly” Japanese, they pretty much have to meet all of these above requirements. Both of their parents must be Japanese, they must be born in Japan, and for the majority of their life, have been raised in Japan. In contrast to America, this is an extremely conservative framework from which to define a national ethnic identity, and can be said to be the one of the many subtle manifestations of Japan’s entrenched xenophobia. This is particularly expressed in Japanese politics, especially in regards to Japan’s immigration policies. Japan is one of the most homogenous nations on earth, with 98.5% of the population being ethnic Japanese (!!!). However, as Japan has slowly became a 少子高齢化 (a society with an aging population combined with a diminishing birthrate), many analysts predict that this Japanese paradigm is not self-sustainable. So the final question that I think needs to be posed is, as Japan moves into the future and it’s population continues to decline, will it slowly become liberal in terms of who is considered to be Japanese?



My friend Tim, who is half Japanese, born and raised in Hawaii. He attended Kansai Gaidai back in the day, and now works in Japan as an English teacher on the JET Program. Tim said that he will never be truly considered to be Japanese, despite his heritage, because of the fact that he isn't 100% Japanese and the fact that he wasn't born and raised in Japan. He told me that even if he marries a Japanese woman, which there is a strong possibility of, and lives in Japan for the rest of his life, he will never really quite be "Japanese" to the average Japanese person - he will still just be another foreigner living in Japan.

Both of the two men in the picture above are of 100% Japanese ancestry, however one was born and raised in Australia, and is now here at Kansai Gaidai as an exchange students. By simply looking at the picture above, would you be able to guess which is which? Although they look pretty much exactly the same in terms of their features, etc., the man on the left, Shoji, is from Australian, and when asked he says he identifies himself as being Australia, and not really Japanese. I then asked other Japanese friends and international students about what cultural/ethnic category he fell under, and the vast majority said Australian. I find this to be a very interesting dynamic.

"Magazine plays to Japanese xenophobia" - An interesting article on Japanese xenophobia from The Guardian

Go (2001) at IMBD

Many of the statistics used throughout this blog came from the CIA World Factbook Page on Japan

Japanese Immigration Policies from their website

Neighborhood Hirakata

"Sand dollar" also known more commonly as "obaasan's" by exchange students from Kansai Gaidai. This nickname most probably came about because of the delicious food and relaxing atmosphere, which can have the effect of bringing back nostolgic feelings of going over to grandma's house for dinner when you're a kid. The resturant is owned and run by an older couple, with the husband being the chef and the wife the waitress and cashier.

Outside view of Sand Dollar - it is set inside the entrance of a nondescript apartment building in the Makino area. It would be easy to walk by this place a million times and never realize it exists due to the fact that it is kind of hidden and there are no real advertisements outside except the display case outside which showcases it's dishes with wax models. I didn't go here a single time last semester because I had never noticed it, but upon moving into the seminar house this semester all of my friends who were here last semester introduced it to me and they were really suprised when I told them I had never even heard of it.

Shisen Ramen which lays inbetween Makino and Gotenyama stations. They frequently offer coupon deals and one can usually get a meal of a bowl of ramen, a plate of gyoza, and a plate of chinese fried rice for under 1000 yen. Although this resturant is a chain and does have other locations, I decided to include it due to the fact that it pretty much is literally a hole in the wall and it exhibits all of the necessary characteristics which would define an 穴場: cheap food, good friendly service, and not exactly well-known.

When people think of Japan, images of mega corporations often come to mind: Sony, Panasonic, Toyota, Nintendo - the list goes on and on. However, something many people don't realize about Japan is that entrepreneurship pervades Japan in many respects, and plays a vital role within the Japanese economy. Mom and pop stores and restaurants can be found all over Japan.

This fact became very apparent to me after arriving in Hirakata city back in September of last year. When I first arrived, and before I had a bike, I would often leisurely walk around the neighborhood, taking everything in, and I noticed how many small local shops there are everywhere within the city. This fact became more apparent to me as the semester progressed and I would frequently get lost in the residential area around my host family's house – I would often stumble upon little yakiniku, udon and ramen restaurants tucked away amongst the rowhouses.

Some of these restaurants are actually quite amazing, and in many cases also affordable. There is a word in Japanese for these kinds of places – 穴場　(anaba) which literally translates as hole and place, but is more akin to the english saying little hole in the wall (implying good) restaurant (jisho.org translates it as little-known good place ). While many exchange students in Japan only eat at big name places like McDonalds and かっぱ寿司 (Kappazushi), I find that many of the best restaurants in Hirakata are the small 穴場`s that are tucked away in random places which can be extremely easy to overlook, even if it is a place you walk by every single day! Hirakata is full of these little 穴場`s, and I have decided to make it one of my goals while I am in Japan to try and search out as many of them as possible and find out which ones are the best.

Link the "Life@Kansaigidai" page where there is resturant section with recomendations of good places to eat at from current professors and students
http://www.kansaigaidai.net/Main.action#

Early Impressions of Japan

Since I am an extension student, I have already been in Japan for a full semester before taking this course. However, during winter break I did travel to Seoul, South Korea for 9 days, and upon returning to Japan I soon after went to Tokyo for about 4 days. There were many sharp contrasts between the 2 capitals of these neighboring countries, so I would like to spend this post talking about my early impressions I experienced after returning from Seoul to Japan and going to Tokyo.

One of my first impressions I had upon returning to Japan from Korea was that the cost of living here is extremely high. One could easily assume that the cost of living in Seoul and Tokyo would be relatively comparable considering that they are the capitals of two of the most economically developed nations in Asia, but I found this not to be true. As soon as I arrived back in Japan and escpecially after going to Tokyo I found everything to be so extremely expensive! Seoul seemed so cheap in many ways after going to Tokyo and contrasting the cost of living between the two places.

This contrast immediately manifested itself to me in Tokyo in a variety of ways: admission fees, transportation costs, food costs, accomodation costs, and commodity costs. Case in point: in Seoul, you can take the subway pretty much anywhere within the city for about $1 give or take. After going to Tokyo and looking at the subway map at Shinjuku which shows all the different prices I was flabbergasted and even slightly pissed off that riding the subways in Tokyo cost anywhere from around $2 to $14 (the average being about 5 times what it was in Seoul). This situation extended beyond mere transportation fees to all the various cost of living prices as listed above.

To put it simply, my early impressions of Japan after returning here from Korea was that it is an extremely expensive country. Everywhere I turned - whether simply comparing the prices of meals on menus outside of restaurants or the prices of subway tickets in train stations in Seoul and Tokyo - made this pop out at me constantly. I guess it makes sense considering it is often said that Japan is one of the most expensive places to live in the world.














My capsule style bunkbed room at Ace Inn Guesthouse in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Was around $45/night and extremely small. (image borrowed from http://ace-inn.jp/rooms/index.html)
















My single room at Kim's Guesthosue in Mapo-gu, Seoul - an area of Seoul that could be compared to Shinjuku in terms of its convienent location, however the price was literally half of my capsule "room" in Shinjuku, despite the fact that it was a real room and maybe 6 times the size!















Fish and chips dinner at a bar in Roppongi, Tokyo. Was around $10 (of course excluding the cost of the beer I'm holding).















Fish and chips at a bar in Haebangchong, Seoul, an area that could be compared to the Roppongi district of Tokyo in the sense that there is a large presence of foreigners and establishments aimed at foriegn clientele. However, the price was about half of my fish and chips dinner in Roppongi, and the serving size was about a third larger!




Article about cost of living in Japan for an expat:
http://www.expatforum.com/articles/cost-of-living/cost-of-living-in-japan.html

Worldwide Cost of Living survey 2008 by city - Tokyo is in 2nd place, and Seoul in 5th
http://www.mercer.com/costoflivingpr