I had junior high school kids write a response to the question "Should you learn English?"

Here is one of my student's responses:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/esg...ac717a.jpg

Several other students wrote almost the exact same thing.

I wasn't bothered, I thought it was funny. I showed it to other teachers (both foreign and Japanese) and they thought it was funny.

I wouldn't get offended by something a child said.

esgrove Wrote:I had junior high school kids write a response to the question "Should you learn English?"

Here is one of my student's responses:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/esg...ac717a.jpg

Several other students wrote almost the exact same thing.

I wasn't bothered, I thought it was funny. I showed it to other teachers (both foreign and Japanese) and they thought it was funny.

I wouldn't get offended by something a child said.

Wow, his English is pretty good.

I heard Japanese people in general are nice to foreigners. I heard you should say "good morning" to them to show you are a friendly person and not afraid of speaking Japanese. But what do I know, I've never been there.

I think Kanji are much more difficult to write than English letters. However, that student's handwriting is terrible! Though, it is readable.

I will close this thread with a link of

I think this guy gets more followers than a middle school kid

Honestly I don't like many foreigners I meet in Japan. I'm talking mostly about young white males who treat the country like a playground, its people as playthings, and make meiwaku for everybody. They give the rest of us a bad reputation (untrustworthy, dangerous, stupid, unable to speak Japanese/understand Japan, impolite, etc).

Or on the opposite side there are people that are just way too into everything Japan (The Mr. James stereotype). It has gotten to the point where I don't even want to say "I like Japan" to people since they'll automatically assume Japanophile/otaku.

There are, of course, a lot of "normal" foreigners in Japan, but they aren't very conspicuous due to their being normal.

Oh the difficulty of being a minority

FutureBlues Wrote:You're upset because a middle-school student told you this?

Middle-school kids are the scum of the Earth. They don't want to study, they think they know better than anyone else, and in Japan especially, they're coddled every step of the way in school just to make sure they complete their "required" education so that even the worst of them can one day till their parents' fields and/or work in a convenience store.

This kid just figured out something that grates your gears and called you on it. He's too young to truly be consumed by any sort of racial hatred, unless his parents are dicks, perpetrating that hatred. In either case, I would just ignore it and go on with your life knowing that his opinion doesn't matter to anyone, probably not even his peers. And, if he really hates you that much, push back by bothering him in class, forcing him to do his work, helping him when he "forgets" his materials, and generally make him feel like an ass by demonstrating kindness and, in fact, enthusiasm, when he decides to lash out.

I was thinking the same thing- my kids have said some pretty bad things too. But they're only junior high school students... I said some pretty mean things to my BEST FRIENDS when I was that age.

The sad thing is the majority of my students don't have enough foresight to realize that their lack of interest in education in any form will have a major impact on their lives. They're going to end up as conbini workers and vending machine fillers as soon as they finish high school.

midwayplane Wrote:

thermal Wrote:2. I had dinner with a friend and her boss. At the end my boss called her over to him and whispered in her ear. She then came to me and said "he will pay, but you have to thank him". Foreigners are ungrateful.

I would have paid for my own meal and left immediately. I will not tolerate such insulting behavior.

Well from my experiences in Japan that would be one of the worst things you could do. Remember you are with your friend's boss. What sort of problems would/could it cause her by doing that? And while not necessarily easy to do it's sometimes best just to turn the other cheek, especially in Japan.

jcdietz03 Wrote:I heard Japanese people in general are nice to foreigners.

They are polite. Whether this is "nice" depends on your definition. It becomes frustrating to work daily with someone for 2 years and find that at the end of that time they still aren't willing to treat you as anything but a temporary guest who doesn't know anything about Japan. (Not everyone's like this, of course.)

What do you consider racism to be IceCream?

The thing is we are all racist to certain degrees. Imagine deeply and peacefully hugging someone you love, say your Mum. Then imagine that person changes to a random stranger of X race. You will likely find that your response is different depending on the race.

I read a book blink which talks about the almost instantaneous judgments we make about other people. We instinctively asses levels of threat and cover our asses when we are afraid, such as by attacking even if only in our mind. Unless you have spent time with people of a certain race it is natural to be racist to a certain degree.

Of course there is nothing wrong with this. As long as you don't give into your fear and be reasonable even when you are dealing with someone from a race which you have not had much exposure to.

Also check out the racist test here: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/de...atest.html

I personally think the way they test you is inaccurate, but I think it does illustrate the concept that we are racist to certain degrees.

woodwojr Wrote:

thermal Wrote:Racism is prejudice towards a people. That person is a foreigner so they must be X, Y and Z. All foreigners are X, Y and Z. You can't trust any foreigner.

"Foreigner" is not a people.

~J

Yeah didn't mean to imply that. Although, 外人 in the way it is typically used means someone from an English speaking country, which do have similar values so you kind of can generalise.

EG: http://images.google.co.jp/images?hl=ja&...=2&aq=f&oq=

FutureBlues Wrote:You're upset because a middle-school student told you this?

Middle-school kids are the scum of the Earth. They don't want to study, they think they know better than anyone else, and in Japan especially, they're coddled every step of the way in school just to make sure they complete their "required" education so that even the worst of them can one day till their parents' fields and/or work in a convenience store.

This kid just figured out something that grates your gears and called you on it. He's too young to truly be consumed by any sort of racial hatred, unless his parents are dicks, perpetrating that hatred. In either case, I would just ignore it and go on with your life knowing that his opinion doesn't matter to anyone, probably not even his peers. And, if he really hates you that much, push back by bothering him in class, forcing him to do his work, helping him when he "forgets" his materials, and generally make him feel like an ass by demonstrating kindness and, in fact, enthusiasm, when he decides to lash out.

this

I think a lot of the time it's ignorance rather than an actual dislike.

However, I do feel that in Japan the "politeness" is not true "friendliness", in that they will act friendly and be polite to you, but that completely masks their true feelings. Of course this is a generalisation, and doesn't apply to the entire population, just the average attitude.

montecristo73 Wrote:Speaking of which, it's really funny when you see foreigners in trains and buses totally ignoring the presence of other foreigners with a certain "I'm so used to the Japanese lifestyle that I'm not even going to acknowledge we are on the same boat after all... juts so you know how cool I am!"

I never understood why one should acknowledge other foreigners. "Oh hey, you're also in Japan!" Guess who else is in Japan? All of the other people on the train. Why should you give some random foreigner a wink and a nod just because s/he also doesn't hold a Japanese passport?

Should I nod at random people in my home country who also have brown hair, just because we have some insignificant thing in common?

Are people who drive a fancy car, who don't nod at other drivers of the same model showing off? The answer is no. I certainly don't nod at every other Mac user I see. The show-off is the one who goes "Look at me! I'm also X!" Everyone else is just living their life. Making it to Japan isn't something impressive, it just means you had some free time and some spare cash for a plane ticket.

The people who are "so used to the Japanese lifestyle" are people who have realized that Japan is just a country, not some super exciting adventure of a lifetime which you must share with every person you meet.

esgrove Wrote:I had junior high school kids write a response to the question "Should you learn English?"

Here is one of my student's responses:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/esg...ac717a.jpg

Hey you missed "foreigers"! And "wount"! And the last sentence should probably be "they have a culture that's different from ours", it's just wrong now. Gotta show 'em the way.

Though seriously, something I've wanted to read (even though I don't have any plans to become a teacher) is an awesome book written by an awesome teacher. It's like, I see all these personal development books, stuff like AJATT and even "biographies to learn from" written by politicians and whatever. But I have not seen any good material where teachers tell their stories, their philosophy and everything about studying. It seems like the kind of books that 20-somethings studying to become teachers would need, but when I've asked at my university they're like "what what do you even mean ohhh that's clever". And not just them, a lot of people would benefit from seeing the workings behind some actually practical pedagogy instead of just studying theory and hearing the occasional story about how Awesome Mcgee Teacha put his (why's it always a he) students in their place.

Icecream is no 1 at racism for sure. In a good way. On a related note, I am imagining the whole thread sitting in a cinema watching a rerun of "Eurotrip" going HRRRRNNNNGHHHHHGHHGHGH all the way through.

thermal Wrote:The thing is we are all racist to certain degrees. Imagine deeply and peacefully hugging someone you love, say your Mum. Then imagine that person changes to a random stranger of X race. You will likely find that your response is different depending on the race.

If she were to turn into a different species maybe... I mean shit... when you realize you're hugging a grizzly bear or a spotted panther your butthole puckering a bit would be totally natural at that point. However, feelings changing in regard to a person belonging to a specific ethnic group or possessing features common to that group is something I can only imagine happening by putting emphasis (internally) on a supposed negative aspect of said group. That is, you have to look for the bad and internalize an association to the bad with a certain feature.

There is usually a "general" label that goes along with the association. "In general tall people are like this." "Most tall people do that." The generalization can be local or global. "The tall people where I live are tall." "All tall people eat pancakes."

This generalization is then reinforced by repetition and/or some sort of negative experience through which one ends up with "See, tall people are XXX," or "I knew tall people were xxx."

By reframing and ultimately dissipating/eliminating such over-generalizations these forms of micro-racism illustrated in the above quote tend to disappear.

thermal Wrote:Also check out the racist test here: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/de...atest.html

I personally think the way they test you is inaccurate, but I think it does illustrate the concept that we are racist to certain degrees.

Question 1: Do you consider your skin color to be?

Question 2: What color do you wish your skin color was?

Question 3: Rate the warmness/coldness you believe people of X skin color to be.

WTF!? You have to be (partly) racist and/or (partly) hate yourself to even complete the damn thing.

kazelee Wrote:Question 3: Rate the warmness/coldness you believe people of X skin color to be.

well, white reflects more light, so they must be colder.
black absorbs it, so the must be warmer.
it's basic science™, people!

(i know, i know, i'll stop making bad jokes now...)

" I went to a capsule hotel in Tokyo after a long day of walking around. The staff said in Japanese "Piiyuuuuu! He stinks" and the other one said "well he is a foreigner after all". All foreigners stink."

The staff said this? Did you try to make a complain or anything?

Man all these stories kind of make me feel depressed.

Jarvik7 Wrote:

montecristo73 Wrote:Speaking of which, it's really funny when you see foreigners in trains and buses totally ignoring the presence of other foreigners with a certain "I'm so used to the Japanese lifestyle that I'm not even going to acknowledge we are on the same boat after all... juts so you know how cool I am!"

I never understood why one should acknowledge other foreigners. "Oh hey, you're also in Japan!" Guess who else is in Japan? All of the other people on the train. Why should you give some random foreigner a wink and a nod just because s/he also doesn't hold a Japanese passport?

On the other hand you don't want to turn into one of those snotty people who seems proud of the fact that they "didn't come to Japan to talk to foreigners" and thus don't have any non-Japanese friends. I never knew what to do when seeing a foreigner -- the brown hair example isn't really the same thing since there are so few foreigners in Japan depending on where you live. Out in the boonies where I was, I saw 1-2 a month, maybe, outside of the couple of people I worked with.

Jarvik7 Wrote:There are, of course, a lot of "normal" foreigners in Japan, but they aren't very conspicuous due to their being normal.

Oh the difficulty of being a minority

Had to laugh at this. Would be nice if the normal crowd made the same degree of an impression on people as the wacky ones I get a kick out of answering Japanese people's amazement at things with "uh... yeah.. that's totally normal right?" That's really the message I want to present to people - we can have a great time doing normal things together without all this cultural excitement TV nonsense crap.

FL1PPY Wrote:" I went to a capsule hotel in Tokyo after a long day of walking around. The staff said in Japanese "Piiyuuuuu! He stinks" and the other one said "well he is a foreigner after all". All foreigners stink."

The staff said this? Did you try to make a complain or anything?

Man all these stories kind of make me feel depressed.

At first I was quite shocked. I went upstairs and put my stuff in my locker, but soon realised I couldn't live with myself if I didn't say something. I should also mention that I was putting my shoes in the shoe locker. It wasn't like they said it to my face but I have good hearing.

Anyway, I went back down and said hey but you said this to one. He denied it, but he was full of it, since he offered no alternative. Like they said something that sounded similar. However, what they actually said was (クッサ（or maybe クッセ）。さすが). At the time I knew that things like 暑い can become アッツ and 寒い can become サッム but I wasn't sure if this was some rule applicable in many cases, or just for hot and cold. So I didn't feel I could be 100% sure that what they said carried the meaning it did so I left it.

I changed hotels after that, which was annoying because this one was well priced and a great location. Eventually I asked my friend if my interpretation was correct and she said it was. I was planning to write a letter to the manager, but eventually just left it/forgot about it. Oh well, hopefully they learned the lesson that they can't just say horrible things about 外人 assuming they won't understand.