Hey guys! Today I'm here with Sharla! Hello!
Sorry, I'm stabbing you.
Awkward intros.
In Sharla's apartment if you can't tell (by all the cat plushies).
And we're gonna talk about the subject of microaggressions.
ARRRrrr!
If you haven't heard of the word "microaggression"
then um...
congratulations. You live such a nice life.
So a microaggression according to the first result on google is
"The everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights,
snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory,
or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership."
That's an extremely long definition.
Basically, a microaggression is when someone is trying to fit into a society
and then a person from that society does something that makes it
seem like they don't accept that person into that society.
Do you wanna give an example?
Sure. One very common microaggression that you'll see people complaining about in Japan
is, say you go to a convenience store and you purchase a bento, and they'll give you
a fork to eat your bento with whereas they would give chopsticks to a Japanese customer.
Right. Some foreigners who live in Japan, especially if they've been living here a long
time, they're like, "I know how to use chopsticks. Why are you giving me a fork instead of giving
me chopsticks? I want to be treated the same as everyone else."
And I can totally understand where they're coming from. I can see where they're coming from.
For me personally, I don't feel upset by that.
It doesn't bother me either, because you can see that they have good intentions.
They're just thinking, "Oh, maybe they have difficulty using chopsticks.
I'll give them a fork so they can eat easily."
Right. They're just trying to be helpful.
They're not thinking like, "Oh stupid gaijin, you can't use chopsticks! HA, fork."
They're doing it because they're trying to be nice.
Right. Just try to remember what their intentions are.
Another example would be if you're at a store and then the worker speaks to you
in English instead of speaking to you in Japanese.
That often happens. Yeah.
They're not trying to say you're like stupid or can't speak Japanese or whatever.
They're trying to be preemptively helpful.
They've probably come across lots of customers who couldn't speak Japanese so
their first instinct is "Oh! Non-Japanese person! I should probably try English with them first."
Yeah. On the other hand, I totally understand people who do get upset about this.
Especially if they're a foreigner who is not from an English speaking country.
Yeah, they don't even speak English. Yeah, that would be frustrating.
Or if they've lived in Japan for 10 years,
it gets kind of tiring when people speak to you in English.
You kind of just want them to treat you like everyone else.
Or especially if you're half-Japanese or you look like a foreigner but you were raised in Japan.
That would be so obnoxious.
I feel really bad for those people.
I can see how that would be really annoying.
For me personally, it's very rare
that I've had a Japanese worker speak to me in English instead of Japanese.
Usually it only happens at places like airports.
Like really, really big touristy areas. Right.
Like Asakusa or something, where lots of tourists are going through and lots of non-Japanese
speakers. Yeah.
Almost everywhere I go they always speak to me in Japanese.
Especially like even when I first got here and I couldn't speak Japanese at all they would always speak
to me in Japanese.
And I'd be like, "I heard they'd speak to me in English!! D:> I don't understand."
So another one would be things like Japanese people getting surprised if
you can eat sushi, even though that's really common abroad now.
Yeah, they just kind of assume that foreigners don't like eating raw fish.
Right. So you'll probably get that a lot. "Oh, you can eat raw fish?!"
They're really surprised. But they're probably happy.
No, they are. They're really happy about it.
And I mean I do have friends who don't like raw fish.
Yeah, there are lots of people. I'm pretty sure my parents aren't big fans.
Yeah. Right. I think a lot of that, too, is just trying to make conversation with someone
they don't know about. True.
So like when they say, "Your Japanese is so good!!" right after you've said "Konnichiwa" or something.
It's probably just like awkward small talk.
They don't know what else to say. I just figure they're trying to be nice to me.
And honestly for me, I'm never upset when someone underestimates me
because I get a lot of joy out of surprising people.
Like if they underestimate me and then I show them up, I'm like
"HA HAAAA!"
That feels better than them expecting you to speak fluent Japanese when you can't. Right.
So I don't see why that's seen as a bad thing.
I would rather go in and pretend I have to use a fork,
and then suddenly whip out chopsticks in my right hand,
AND IN MY LEFT HAND.
They'll be like "WHAAAAAA?!?!??!?!"
That would be fun for me.
If you're a person that's really affected by these things,
you're probably going to run across lots of them. Yeah.
So just be prepared for it. Yeah.
And I'm not saying you can't feel upset about it because
I totally understand why it would bother you. I think there's legitimacy to feeling the
way you do. But try to understand where they're coming from, too.
They're not trying to be mean.
They're really just trying to be helpful or they want to be conversational but they
don't know what else to say to you. They're just trying to be nice.
So that was all about microaggressions!
If you guys have anything to say about it, please write your comments down below!
We'd love to see what your thoughts are.
Thank you for discussing this with me, Sharla!
Yeah, you're welcome!
And if you're not subscribed to Sharla, check out Sharla in Japan!
And her second channel Sharla's Life!
I'll see you guys later! Bye!