Japanese racism will hurt their economy?

It's a big article, but a very interesting read.


http://www.japantimes.com/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fl20050104zg.htm

OVERSEAS EXECS TIRED OF REJECTION

Racism is bad business

Arudou Debito offers accounts of how "Japanese Only" policies are turning international business away from Japan

By ARUDOU DEBITO

The Community Page has commented at length on socially-sanctioned exclusionary practices in Japan. However, it has rarely touched upon their quantifiable, longer-term effects.

Exclusionism is bad for business. Why? Because non-Japanese residents are not the only ones affected by "no-foreigner" policies. So are visiting representatives of international corporations. This makes for unfavorable overseas impressions, not only of northern Japan (famous for its decade displaying "JAPANESE ONLY" signs), but also of the entire country.

"Most people coming to Japan nowadays are not here for big 'bubble-era' business, but rather as Japan fans. But after a few years and a lot of bad experiences, I often see them leaving as Japan detractors," said Simon Jackson, president of Northpoint Network Inc. in Sapporo, Japan's fifth-largest city, on the northern island of Hokkaido.

Jackson has extensive experience doing business here: A 13-year resident who created his own company from scratch, he has spent a third of his adult life building business contacts between Japan, China, Russia, America, Canada, and New Zealand and Australia, his countries of origin.

His biggest account, amounting to several million U.S. dollars, is between China, Japan, and Russia. The first two are interested in the third's untapped oil and natural gas reserves on Sakhalin Island. An energy-hungry Japan has great interests in keeping good relations with their Russian neighbors.

However, Japan's exclusionism is souring things.

"I have taken visiting Russian and Russia-based Western clients out on the town in Hokkaido. It's become quite normal to get refused service at even regular bars," Jackson said.

Particularly grievous is Susukino, Sapporo's party district and the largest of its kind north of Tokyo.

"Susukino is now essentially closed to foreigners. I'm not talking about hidden-away brothels in obscure corners and down back streets," said Jackson.

"I mean brightly-advertised shops on the main street, and even the bottle-keep 'snacks' where people go for nightcaps. We walk in, and before anyone even checks if we can speak Japanese, we get the crossed arms barring us entry."

The result? "My clients walk out with very bad impressions, which last a long time. Often when I meet somebody for the first time and mention I'm from Hokkaido, the conversation soon turns to the time they got excluded somewhere. Without my even bringing it up."

This affects their future business decisions.

"Some senior contacts at Western-run companies in Sakhalin have even told me that if they have any choice, they actively steer business away from Japan."

Jackson's most pathetic story is about a Japanese government-sponsored business trip to Sakhalin to promote tourism.

"The Japanese representative said to the Russians, 'Come down south, take a break and enjoy Sapporo's nightlife.' 'Not likely,' they said. They knew they'd be refused somewhere all over again. The rep promised, 'It won't happen again. I'll take you around the bars myself.'

"Guess what happened? They went to about 10 bars. Every single one of them refused them entry -- regardless of the fact that the Russian businessmen were accompanied by a native speaker, and a government functionary at that.

"The representative then tried to take them to his favorite watering hole, where people knew him. But the Mama refused them there too! He finally took them to a garden-variety izakaya chain and drank himself into a cold silence."

The reason for the Susukino Shutout?

"It's a hangover of World Cup 2002," said Jackson, recalling the famous England vs. Argentina game that anticipated alighting foreigners setting Sapporo alight.

According to two Susukino barkeepers, Japanese police took cops from Britain, Germany, and Italy from bar to bar, scaring shopkeepers with tales of soccer hooligans. "The police hinted we close down for the duration, missing out on one of the year's biggest business opportunities!"

Not all did. Many instead put up "Members Only" signs -- in several languages except Japanese -- to block all foreign custom. As the International Herald Tribune newspaper reported on Nov. 23, 2002, even a ramen shop displayed it -- on orders from the local restaurateurs' association.

Two and a half years later, long after the threat of hooliganism that ultimately failed to materialize, these signs are still up around Susukino.

"It was just a good excuse to justify what they wanted to do all along," sighed Jackson.

But the problem is not limited to Hokkaido.

"In Nagoya this year, I was invited to the Suzuka Formula One auto races as a guest of a Western company supporting this event for a long time," Jackson recalled. "Walking down the street in Nagoya's nightlife district with senior reps of this company, people on the street passing out flyers to their bars pulled their hands back when they saw us. We even got refused rides in taxis. That's pretty stupid. What kind of an image is that supposed to create?"

Jackson said this company is considering changing its support to the Shanghai Formula One because of this and other ill-feelings incurred.

"And Nagoya is going to be hosting the 2005 Aichi World's Fair? You're joking. Just more people to come to Japan and leave with a sour taste," he said.

Furthermore, it's not only visitors or residents who feel the alienation. Japan spends millions annually bringing people over on Ministry of Education Scholarships, and through organizations like The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

These people receive funding for wages, room and board, training, and research. They also have access to domestic technologies to boost Japanese business opportunities overseas.

"These people should be going back home and becoming de facto spokespeople for Japan. But many -- dare I say most? -- remember being treated like second-class residents. Especially those brought over from countries in Asia, South America and Africa," Jackson said.

"One of my Sri Lankan friends, who joined the Hokkaido cricket games I organized, told me cricket was the only enjoyable thing he experienced in his two years at Hokkaido University. I repeat: the only. What a counterproductive use of scholarship money bringing the poor guy over here."

Just how long does the Japanese government think it can get away with no redresses for discrimination, including a law against racial discrimination? Can it merely coast along on half-measures while prejudicial policies spread nationwide?

As lawsuits rack up involving refusals at a jewelry store, bathhouses, a real estate broker, a bar, and now an optician, the problem is getting worse. As www.debito.org/roguesgallery.html catalogs, a confirmed 12 cities around Japan have been found to have had "JAPANESE ONLY" signs up.

"Japan puts all this effort into bringing people over here only to turn them off," concludes Jackson. "It should also be safeguarding their right to spend money, do business, and live here like anyone else. All a foreign guest or businessperson has to do is walk outside and see what Japan really seems to think about them."

Japan can do better than this. It must. As the world's second-biggest economy, in a resource-hungry world, this is tragic. As Asian business prospects steadily shift to a growing China, this situation, if left as is, will only hurt Japan's future global opportunities.

The Japan Times: Jan. 4, 2005
(C) All rights reserved


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In my experience (first came to live and work in Japan in 1985), discrimination against foreigners was at somewhat of a peak in the 1980's, in large part due to (a) the trade war with the U.S. and the negative media coverage of all things American during that time, and (b) a certain nationalist arrogance Japan was feeling at the time due to their economic dominance.

During that time, I was stopped by police for "bicycling while foreign" on many occasions, and a policeman stopping you while walking down the street and asking you for your gaijin card was far from unheard-of. In the many times I went apartment hunting, I had a 90%+ rejection rate just from when the landlord heard I was non-Japanese. The real estate agents even used the exact identical phrase when explaining it to me: "gaijin wa dame." Can't tell you how many hundreds of times I heard that phrase. I saw three specific notices at real estate agencies which read "pets, bar girls (mizushoubai) and foreigners not allowed."

I was once told to leave a restaurant as I walked in, and one video shop said I could not join unless I held Japanese citizenship. However, these two locations were both in proximity to Yokota base, and likely the reactions there were to the perceived unruly behavior of military personnel, imagined or not.

The media could be very bad. If you saw a foreigner on TV during that time, it was quite common for them to be portraying a criminal or AIDS carrier or something of the like. America was seen as a violent, crime-ridden nation. One drama had a Japanese couple visit Hawaii and suffer as victims of five different crimes in the span of a few days, including mugging and rape. One well-publicized TV movie, "Rosu no Dai-ikkyu Satsujin" (The First-Degree Murderer of Los Angeles) was "based upon" the story of a Japanese woman living in L.A. with her husband and two small children; her husband cheated on her, she found out, committed oya-ko suicide (took her kids with her)--her kids died but she didn't, and she was charged with murder. The jury sentenced her to time served upon understanding the cultural differences. But in the TV movie, the woman was made out to be a heroic victim, she did not commit suicide, but rather violent Americans started a fire which killed her kid and she was unmercifully disbelieved and sentenced to prison time. This was kind of typical of the era.

Sports was also a big area of discrimination. Foreign batters, brought in for their home run power, were commonly beaned by Japanese pitchers who believe that this was the way things were done in the U.S.--without thinking that rushing the mound and beating the **** out of such a pitcher was also the way thing were done. But the foreign players were blamed for the violence, even though a majority (around 2/3rds, I believe) of the violence was perpetrated by Japanese players, coaches and managers. But TV shows didn't reveal that--one sports show had about 20 clips of violence on the field, all but one of which was foreign players rushing the mound--and the last clip being of a coach shouting at an ump, followed by the announcer 'reasonably' admitting that "Japanese could be violent, too."

Sports magazines commonly changed the kanji for "gai-jin" ("outside person") to the homonym "gai-jin" ("harmful person"), and the term was used so commonly as an epithet that it had to actually be banned by the league.