Champion or chump?
Check out this post over at Occidentalism,which takes gaijin - turned - Japanese - national Debito Arudo (David Aldwinckle) to task and then some for “race hustling” and spreading misinformation about Japan that eventually has a negative effect on foreigners who live here.
It even contains a video by a young gaijin woman who apologizes (in Japanese) for an earlier video in which she accused Japanese of racism towards foreigners, based on what she read on Debito’s sight.
Debito has a lot of misinformation on his site, especially regarding the extent of racism and manifestations of racism in Japan. The girl in the youtube below is an American living in Japan, and is an English teacher studying Japanese in her spare time. She been posting video blogs on youtube for sometime, and thanks to the fact that she is a white girl that is trying to speak Japanese, she gathered a Japanese following.
At some point she came across Debito’s site and decided to give a speech on youtube about human rights and Japanese racism towards foreigners in Japan. In her summary of the video, she included a link from Debito.org. The selection of topics are all from Debito’s site so it is obvious that she got her “opinions” from there.
A must read. . .
I’ve always felt that Debito started out in the right place (obvious discrimination regarding his family at onsen in Hokkaido), but has since moved to hyperbole and glorified victimhood.
I’ve experienced the nasty looks and even a few insults in my years in Japan, but similar things happen elsewhere in the world to obvious racial and ethnic others.
There have only been a few times I’ve felt truly discriminated against in Japan and the only systematic one was when apartment hunting in Tokyo around 2004 or 2005. I’d say a full 25% of the places looked at wouldn’t allow a foreigner of any kind, shape or form (language fluency, employment, marriage to Japanese national–none mattered). I should mention that I didn’t use a foreigner centric agency or look in foreigner centric areas like Roppongi or Hiroo. It used to be more overt even a decade ago and the real estate books would just list “Foreigner not possible” (gaijin fuka), whereas now the realtor calls up the owner/management and asks if a foreigner is ok. The realtor said that non-white foreigners have an even harder time.
July 24th, 2008 at 1:11 amI agree. I don’t excuse any discrimination in Japan but I feel that the type of discrimination is different in Japan then in other countries. In Japan, I thinks discrimination is really more based on polite ignorance. A Japanese person, especially older one, who maybe just feels that foreigners do not understand Japanese culture.
While in other countries, discrimination is more based on hate. Hate of other people. And also sometimes results in violence. I feel that there is littel if any violence in japan based on racism.
July 24th, 2008 at 3:58 amDebito is a chump who has pretty much gone unchallenged in this arena allowing him to continue with his dubious and deceptive practices of creating situations to get stopped on purpose so that he can turn around and use the gaijin race card for his own agenda. Anyone who has tried to debunk or offer a counterviewpoint on his site never sees their comments published by him. Some of these same people who were blocked have posted comments on Occidentalism and they are anything but frothy mouthed irrational commenters. All he allows are viewpoints similar to his own. This exclusionary moderation policy is rather telling.
But I think this is all going to blow up in his face big time considering the growth of the gaijin blogging community. Debito and some of his pathelogical lying followers are going to find it increasingly difficult to control the message they’ve been delivering. There are some Japanese bloggers (like ponta) who are taking Debito and his followers to task as well. So it’s nice to see more sites Debunking Debito especially in the Japan-related gaijin community. Because the more foreigners who speak out and say that Debito’s reality isn’t what they’ve experienced, the less credibility this chump will have.
July 24th, 2008 at 3:02 pmWhile there is a lot to criticize Debito Aridou about, the venom he seems to generate from some people is a little surprising. It would be nice if some of that vitriol could be directed towards someone like Gregory Clark (aka the Anti-Aridou), a semi-regular columnist in the Japan Times whose writings can be safely summed up as “It’s OK for foreigners to be denied entry into hot springs as Japan needs to do what it can to protect its unique culture”. No doubt the truth lies somewhere in that rational world that exists between the polar opposites of Aridou and Clark.
RTN - When I was looking for an apartment in Tokyo back in 1989, most realtors would welcome me into their offices, and call the landlord to ask if a gaijin tenant was OK or not. The number of rejections was disheartening (though on one memorable occasion, I was turned down because I wasn’t Chinese!), but I eventually found a place. Fast forward to 1998/9, when I paused for a moment to look at the listings in the window of a realtor’s office in Takadanobaba. The real estate agent came outside, grabbed my arm, and took me in to have a look at all the apartments available for rent. All it takes is a few years of economic stagnation, and an accompanying slow property market, to change some attitudes!
BTW, is there some unwritten rule on Japundit that at least one comment per posting must contain an irrelevant comparison to the United States?
July 24th, 2008 at 11:41 pmYou are right about the U.S. comment, kaminoge. Normally I catch them, but the one you are referring to got past me, but it is gone now.
Again a reminder, JAPUNDIT is a Japan blog, and we really are not interested in what’s going on the U.S. or what anyone thinks about it.
Please save your U.S. comments for the weekend Open Thread post.
July 25th, 2008 at 12:44 amNot meaning to excuse the housing situation in Japan, but perhaps owners are fearful of renting to a non-Japanese because if a foreigner disappears by leaving the country, there is nothing the owner can do to track him/her down.
I own a K.K., which by definition is a judicial person with roots in Japan, and have never had any problem renting in the name of the company. Even though a foreigner (me) is the president and CEO.
July 25th, 2008 at 12:50 amI think the fear of people jumping ship has something to do with it, although usually they require a co-signer (faked?). The reason the realtor gave for it being harder for non-Westerners (and I think a subplot was non-white) was cases (real or rumored) of Chinese or SE Asian laborers who would secretly cram in 8 to 10 people, not take proper care of the apartment, not pay the last month or two of rent, then just disappear. There’s also the fear that they won’t be able to communicate or that foreigners will cause problems (noise/parties are often assumed, plus not taking out the correct trash on the correct day). I caused the latter problem when I first when to Japan and my neighbors kindly helped me out. But that was also fairly rural where I think you find fewer of the non-renting issues since everyone knows everyone and they all knew who I was, even if they didn’t know me personally.
In Tokyo, it didn’t matter that I was gainfully employed at a highly respected place, fluent in Japanese and Mrs. RTN is Japanese. The places that didn’t want foreigners, simply didn’t want foreigners. Only a couple places would allow it after the realtor talked to them and explained that I wasn’t the “gaikokujin” they imagined. We were mostly looking at places in NW Shitamachi, which might have made a difference as well.
July 25th, 2008 at 1:08 am