you can't experience xenophobia
yeah that's not good in japan and went away
your last name is not japanese
they just kind of said sorry no gaijin allowed to
hey guys and girls it's your flashy fashion reporter cathy cat and welcome to the rainy season
today we're gonna go hit the streets of tokyo and ask the foreigners who are currently here if
they have experienced any kind of racism in japan let's find out and ask foreigners in japan
right where are you from
okay i'm originally from the united states but right now i live in yokosuka
oh so how long have you been in japan four
jesus like 17 years give or take so
that is a pretty long time you've been here longer than even i have been
oh wow nice
i'm sure you have some more stories to tell have you ever experienced some sort of racism in japan
oh that's a good question actually because i actually do like a lot of counter protests against racist groups actually and stuff
um okay we got to the right person today there you go
here are the anti-fascists... you know screw this screw the fashists and screw the racist um
the thing is this so in japan there's sort of like a hierarchy when it comes to um foreigners that are over here and such stuff
and like at the bottom of there you would have like the chinese and you've got like the zainichi koreans and everything and they have it like the worst and stuff
as a white person and stuff like that we're kind of at the top so i don't really think i experienced quote unquote racism per se
but it is fair to say that because we are different that i do experience that you can experience xenophobia
so you say that the racism doesn't hit you as much because your caucasian you know the white american
stereotype but it hits actually asians more in japan
oh yeah like i mean if you're like there's still other ones too like i've heard some black people see that they face some stuff too but like
the worst of it is definitely if you're chinese or you're like zainichi korean they get it like
by far the worst
you came to japan a while ago - yes
but you said actively you've never experienced racism but xenophobia?
yes i can say that you do you experience some xenophobia every now and then and stuff so it's for me it's been pretty mild
but i've had it and stuff where it's just it could be something as simple as a restaurant actually
A japanese-only restaurant??
yep they do exist i've seen a couple over in yokosuka actually of all places which is really weird because it's a massive foreigner population down there
maybe maybe that's why i guess?
i guess but at the same token and stuff like realistically speaking most like most of the foreigners around
there are friendly and really don't want to cause a whole lot of trouble and stuff like
that so the fact that they even came up in the first place is just kind of like...
if you have one bad experience from somebody and stuff i wouldn't go ahead and generalize an entire group from that
and i feel that that's maybe what the case was there
have you encountered any problems any kind of racism or something in japan yet
oh not really racist on the streets sometimes
i remember once it's the only thing happen in japan that was not so good uh i was in nakano
and there was the old man that started talking to me to see like... ever since i have tattoos
he told me like "no it's not good to show them" but really in a bad way not nice and that's
all but for the rest uh japanese people are always nice especially here in Harajuku Shibuya
since everyone has like color red hair and so
that the gentleman just came up to you and started talking about your tattoos - yeah
wait where were you showing them where are they?
oh it's on the top arm so that day was really warm you know i was like a t-shirt so it was like only i see a little part
and yeah he blew up like from nothing and say "yeah that's not good in japan" and went away
have you been become a little more conscious now that you had that experience
oh no because i know there are some old people that they don't accept foreign so well
uh in the past when i was here already i also have old ladies telling me "ah i love your tattoos"
so but in europe we have the same problem it's now in italy they are still close minded for
tattoos uh also on some jobs you have to hide them and there are people also talking back to
you in the street if you're like dressed up in a goth or alternative way so i'm kind of used to it
used to it from back home?
yeah yeah
did you get a problem with your tattoos trying to get a job?
no not for now but also i went always with hiding them i know that in japan is not well seen so i
will try my best to not show it at the working place i think it's normal so
i think that's the thing some people have like tattoos in obvious places that will be harder for them to find a job
yeah this is why i never done tattoos so visible because i said since i'm not sure that i have like
you know i find a full-time job that i'm sure that i can have piercing and tattoos
i don't want like to ....gonna make too visible that is gonna be problematic after
right where are you from? - new zealand
new zealand right how long have you been in japan for? - seven months
but you already made a lot of things happen? -i've been pretty busy hustling content creation i've got a youtube channel with my wife called daniel and yuka
right so seventh month here in japan but i guess it wasn't easy to have an international marriage have you ever experienced
so especially during the time like trying to do the paperwork any sort of racism in japan
oh good question um actually when we were trying to find an apartment to rent last year
just before christmas uh the first apartment that we uh rang up about and asked if we could go
and get an inspection they actually asked my wife "oh your last name is not japanese"?
"is your husband japanese?" and she said no and then they just kind of said sorry no gaijin allowed to
to rent this apartment
i thought you only have this problem if you're single but what even if you're married you're getting that??
yeah it was so ...we just went to a local minpaku place and managed to find another apartment and a better location
which was bigger and slightly cheaper too so yeah
you know good riddance then
yeah
wow how did that make you feel at the time
i sort of had to laugh about it in hindsight but it was a little bit frustrating at the time
because the apartment we were looking at was quite a nice apartment it was a good distance
from the station and then we just sort of had to restart... that was that was our number one
on on the list that we really wanted to live in so we sort of had to go down to our number two
which actually ended up better so
you're married oh my god sorry whoa but hey your new place is good
yes it is we're very happy with it
not so much racism but maybe more xenophobia generally um japan is a very welcoming country
they've been very kind to me from my personal experiences but getting an apartment was really
really hard i saw a couple of places that i would have loved to live at and i just got turned down
on the basis that i am a foreigner... a foreigner girl living by herself was apparently very very
hard to find something for me... i had people tell like yeah .... the real estate agents will be on the phone
and they'll be like "okay um this place is still available?... ah okay good that's great um i have this girl with me here
she is from Germany and she speaks japanese fluently" and at that point already he was like "oh oh i'm very sorry to have bothered you okay bye"
and then he would tell me "yes sorry they don't accept foreigners"
stuff like that makes everyone a little bit sad but there's also a lot of places that do accept foreigners
so don't don't give up keep trying and try your best and also it's very important to of course there's a lot of different rules here
i guess a couple of noisy foreigners might have ruined it for others or a couple people might have gone home and not
paid their rent and such like that so... that might have led to it in one place but also a couple of
people are just probably scared of the unknown so there's a couple of things we've been seeing
here but like i said for me generally it's been a wonderful welcoming country i'm very grateful to
be here and i've made very very very very positive experiences here as well
so guys thank you so much for tuning in we've asked a question that you might actually be interested in right here in the
next video be sure to check that one out and if you haven't seen it yet we have socials down below
instagram for me i'm the director twitter twitch all the kind of fun things check that
out down below as well thanks for tuning in to ask japanese and i'll catch you soon here in tokyo bye