Are Japanese hostile to Filipinos and other ASEAN in Japan?
March 6, 2010 by
Filed under Asian Programming
When I was in Japan courtesy of JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) study tour programme in February 2006, while waiting for the JICA bus in an Osaka Mall along a railway line on my last day of stay in Japan, an elderly man on a bike spit in front of us with all the whitish/green phlegm and then gave me, my fellow Filipino with 4 other Indonesians a dagger eye look. He looked like a Japanese so I assume he was one. Is this an isolated incident or the superior race mentality among the Japanese or a common Japanese custom. Even what the Japanese did to my country in World War 2 that still gave my parents bad memories, I would like to know if you guys hates us a non caucasian and non slit eyed asians. I am not angry but the memory kept bugging me for an answer from any Japanese who lived in Japan but not in other countries.
@rYokukHa
If you are what you are like your avatar (a Caucasian) I will not go down to your level. Well thanks anyway for your comment. Only Japanese living in Japan only.
So you are a college student, young and probably arrogant of what your imperial soldiers did in WW2 such as bayoneting babies. Most likely you haven’t visited any ASEAN countries to justify your hatred for us. You are simply immature as any young japanese. I cant wait to learn that when a company hire you and you will be sent to other countries that you love to hate then let us see how your arrogance can make you survive the reality outside Japan.
Other responders
Your answers gave me the closure I needed Domo Arigato Gozaimasu!!!
no offence but i would describe some japanese as arrogant people who thinks that they r the best and yes they totally look down on SE Asians
hahaha if you would like to associate the incident with discrimination, racism, hostility then do so; no one can falsify your claim. but i’m thinking your question is almost your conclusion and
your mode of speech like “I would like to know if you guys hates us a non caucasian and non slit eyed asians.” gives me some kind of hint and make me believe the conclusion is based on your “begging a question.”
japanese living in japan only…i dont know what’s the significance of this qualification so i shall say ‘yes’ even if i were a white guy…
I feel sorry to hear your bad experience in Osaka once before. Unfortunately not all of Japanese are very friendly to foreigners especially Asian neighbors.
For myself, I have never had such unpleasant experience in Japan. It could be that Osaka is different from Tokyo. Or otherwise it was just not a good day for you anyway.
Osaka was one of worst crime district in Japan. There used to be so many discrimination to Korean, Chinese and Buraku people historically in the district.
I suppose some Kansai people may still have some special emotion to foreigners as they used to be. I don’t think it is majority of Japanese though.
Then back to regarding to the existence of hostility against Asian neighbors, it could be because according to statistics, so many foreigners from those countries have caused so much problem and crime including overstay, prostitution, drug dealing, steal and theft etc. in Japan.
Of course the percentage is not so big in total but it is also one of reason why some of Japanese are quite nervous to foreigners in daily life.
I think you could have some generous discretion and neutral attitude for them too. You know it that spiting others only hurts yourself. That’s our life.
I am terribly sorry to hear what you experienced while you were in Japan.
I am a Japanese, and I want to say “There’s no such terrible discrimination here” but I cannot.
I cannot deny fully that we don’t have any specific feeling toward certain nationalities. I personally feel sad when I heard or saw such things happen in front of me, and I don’t like people ranking foreigners by their nationalities or races without any convincing reasons.
I was grown in Osaka until 13 years old. And what I learned there was Osaka has issue about “discrimination” against certain people (what I learned was not about foreigners, but among same nationality).
Osaka still has this old ranking habit still in 21st century. Especially old people would feel less bad about ranking people by their home town. We even had special classes at elementary school to learn “how bad to rank people by where they are from” with special movie that Osaka Prefectural Government created for our education. ( They have a place where “Eta” and “Hinin” used to live This place is still discriminated by other Osaka people and they still have hard time to success in the society sometimes. “Eta” “Hinin” mean “a living kind that is not classified as human”)
This kind of idea still lives in some part of Japan or some generation of Japanese. But please remember, not all of us are like that. If the place was different, you and your co-workers might’ve had much better experience.
There are some insane people in every country.
I think the elderly man you met was one of them. Generally, Japanese people do not hate Filipino or other Southeast Asians.
But in fact, some have this “the superior race mentality” because Japan is much more economically advanced.
I think spitting is too much all the same.
Hmm…
Such frank racist is rare.
However, I suppose many of Japanese including young generation are hypocritical racists. Many of them insist they are not racists, but they don’t notice that their inner consciousnesses are looking down on Asian.
And media, especially TV stations, use the word “asia-kei gaikokujin (foreigner of Asian)” negatively. It is regretful our society is racist society.
I would not try to over-analyze your experience, simply because Osaka is full of people with unrefined manners, and they’re also somewhat proud of that. Your old man would have done that to pretty much anyone and would have given them the same look.
Aside from that, Filipinos are the third largest nationality after South Koreans and mainland Chinese of illegal residents in Japan. People from no other ASEAN countries blatantly break immigration laws that way, so there is a certain amount of public resentment towards Filipinos. At the least, there is a real consequent to that, and this kind of law-breaking has made it harder to get a visa to Japan for Filipinos making legitimate applications.
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