So yeah. Ditto. I’ve been here for a month so far, got to know a whole heck of Japanese people, and not a single one has attempted to use me for English practice. The only time I hear English spoken is when I’m around foreigners, or if a foreigner enters our group who has a poor grasp of Japanese.

Just wanted to drop a post and say and explain my thanks! I jumped onto your method right after this past Christmas. I found a pretty good pace, but recently, I binged. 100 new items a day /is not/ the correct pace for me, atm, anyway. It was a great high for the day that it lasted, but the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, and now a week later, I’m paying for not staying on top of my reviews. So, as usual, I came back to your site to see if you had posted the secret magical formula to instant Japanese (a stable USB port in the back of the head /would/ be nice). And lo and behold! I rediscovered it. Just do it. #2 in this post really hit me. I feel like I’ve read most of your posts, but I keep finding more gold mines. Just restating it is sometimes all that I need to get back on the horse.

So, thanks for being prolific and for keeping the site up. Here’s to hoping more people will read before they start to ask about that which you’ve already made available to them.

Cool article as ususal. I totally know where your coming from! Although, I do reckon that you don’t give Tokyoites enough credit though. I mean there is nothing cooler than being able to relax on the train with your fellow sardines, enjoying the aircon, and just be in your own little world, which is pretty much where people from Tokyo are most of the time in my experience. Also, they are pretty cool about things that I imagine that townies might be less inclined to let slide (you can pretty much be whatever you want to be here with no sterotyping, OMG what is she/he wearing!, etc., which is nifty too!). Finally, don’t forget the old one JET/ALT to one town situation that some gaijin get themselves into – I think sometimes being the star of the show can be pretty detrimental yo! (I’m talking about being the unofficial town idol with a similar lack of privacy and often just as many photos – with the whole expectation that you will be just like your fellow Japanese educator co-workers – moderately respectful closet alcholics [just kidding alchy thing]).

Well, laterz,

Jon.

For instance, while in Japan, I studied kendo. This was a club made up entirely of Japanese. I went for rank testing, and it was also an all-Japanese gig. During the testing, one of the judges, an older guy who had made a couple of cracks to/about me being a foreigner before we really got going, called for me by going, “Oi, gaijin!” Now, I was just going to let it go (despite the fact that my name was in big katakana right on my belt, which he could see), but before I had a chance to say or do anything, my coach jumped in and corrected the guy on the spot, saying, “Don’t call her ‘gaijin.’ Her name is ‘Faustian Slip.'” That wasn’t the first time I heard one Japanese correct another for using “gaijin,” and it wasn’t the last, but it sealed my opinion that there are definitely some negative connotations to the word, and people trying to pretend that it has no undertones of racism are (no offense) fooling themselves. Now, does that mean I went around flying into a rage every time I heard that word used? Of course not- like I said, it’s about context. But I never used it around my students (at the request of one of the Japanese teachers of English- again, why ask people to avoid using it if there’s nothing wrong with the word?) or used it myself in interactions with Japanese people, because I do think it promotes a xenophobic attitude towards foreigners, and I’d prefer it to fall out of use on its own.

To me, the word “gaijin” is somewhat analogous the Hebrew/Yiddish “goy.” Is the word inherently racist, by definition? No, but it can certainly be racist by connotation, and its frequent association with negative situations and characteristics isn’t exactly accidental. You see this far more in ultra-Orthodox/Hasidic circles, fortunately, but the fact that the word’s definition isn’t discriminatory doesn’t mean that the word hasn’t gradually adopted a negative connotation. Do I go on a verbal rampage any time I hear someone throwing around the word “goy” (which, being that I don’t live in a Yiddish-speaking community and attend a progressive synagogue, isn’t often)? No, but I won’t use it myself, and my friends know that I don’t care for it and so don’t use it around me. There are other, better and more accurate ways to refer to non-Jewish people when the need arises, just as there are better and more accurate ways to refer to non-Japanese.

Oh, and I have little use for Tokyo, but Osaka is made of win.

I suppose it also depends on personal preference.

I especially identified with the 外人 part as it drives me up the wall when foreigners act like Japanese people are flinging racial slurs at them on a daily basis. But overall it is in the nature of expat communities to complain, it’s not just japan.

Nevertheless after moving to the far East I’ve found that if you know the language (rule #2) and interact with the Japanese public at large as opposed to going to popular expat hangouts like Roppongi, the kinds of foreigners you run into are very different then what you come across on online message boards.