Homogenous Race Strikes Again
09/29/2008 @ 12:00 pm
Well, okay, that was a little misleading. But I couldn’t resist after JP’s last post.
It does seem, however, that Japan’s newly minted minister for tourism and transort, Nariaki Nakayama, had to resign after claiming that:
that Japanese people were “ethnically homogenous” and “definitely … do not like or desire foreigners”.
I was curious to read also that members of the Ainu were particularly disgruntled by this comment. According to reports, Nakayama also refused to retract his statement, claiming he’d rather resign–which he did.
The Ainu understand discrimination in the guise of government policy and decree, they have been traditionally on the receiving end of it.
September 29th, 2008 at 12:48 pmLemme get this straight. The Minister of Tourism states:
“We do not desire foreigners.”
Yes, the Minister of Tourism.
And I suppose the Minister of Commerce hates investment as well, but he’s smart enough to keep that to himself.
September 29th, 2008 at 4:59 pmThe part that baffles me is the fact that he felt so strongly about the statement that he’d rather give up his job than take it back.
Maybe he meant that, instead of that being his personal stance on foreigners, he felt like that was the majority opinion of the people of Japan, and he quit his job because it’s really tough being Minister of Tourism of a country where no one wants foreigners?
Ok, that was a bit of a stretch, but I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:38 pmThis is wonderful.
September 29th, 2008 at 10:18 pmDid someone read his entire remark??
He said:「外国人を好まないというか、望まないというか、日本はずいぶん内向きな、単一民族といいますか、世界とのあれがないものだから内向きになりがち。まず国を開くというか、日本人が心を開かなければならない。」
(The Japanese tend to not like or desire foreigners and tend to be inward-looking, homogeneous people because we lack [much connection] with other countries. The Japanese should open the country or open our minds.)
I think he deserves blame for other improper speeches, and I personally don’t like him at at all, but the media is totally unfair on this, just cutting off the last sentence.
September 30th, 2008 at 1:39 am「外国人を好まないというか、望まないというか、日本はずいぶん内向きな、単一民族といいますか、世界とのあれがないものだから内向きになりがち。まず国を開くというか、日本人が心を開かなければならない。」
Wow, yeah, there is a big difference there. Perhaps they edited what he said just to make him a scapegoat for what is, essentially, the truth. Now, I’m curious as to why the Ainu object to this statement because this statement but perhaps they got the edited version too.
September 30th, 2008 at 1:48 am…My bet is that the edited version got spread.
As for the rest, I don’t quite think it’s true; a lot of the Japanese I met while in Tokyo were quite friendly. Though, given that I kept getting mistaken for a half-breed… ( If I have any mongoloid blood — using the physical anthropology term here, people — it’s from an actual Mongol or a Native American, and centuries back to boot. )
October 2nd, 2008 at 7:34 am