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