I also enjoy time with friends from other countries who are not black or brown. It’s interesting to talk about culture acceptance (or lack thereof) in their countries and to share experiences from my own. It’s wonderful that they are willing to listen instead of discounting what my life is like here. I also like to listen to their experiences as a foreigner in Japan, because sometimes it is just cathartic to talk and release.
And of course, it is important to make connections with Japanese people here. Whenever my husband and I go out with friends to izakaya, he is great at initiating conversations with the local patrons. When I hear “それは僕の奥さんです” that’s my wife! I join in with my fledgling Japanese skills and have a good time making new single serving friends. We also have Japanese friends with whom we love to go to karaoke and battle between a medley of Japanese and English songs.
It’s in between the Country Roads and A Cruel Angel’s Thesis that we all feel the cultural exchange.
Being a foreigner in Japan is one thing in a land of willful homogeneity, but to be a foreigner with black or brown skin brings another set of challenges. Children and adults unabashedly touch our hair, make comments or mock our skin tone. Darker skin is not a standard of beauty here. Skin whitening products are marketed as beautiful. We have to stand against stereotypes put out by Western media and perpetuated in the Asian media. And there is still the sanctioned Black face you can see on the NHK. I came to Japan knowing what I could face. But it’s one thing to know and another to experience it.
My job in Japan is to literally serve as cultural exposure in the classroom and daily life. I use pictures of people of color with ethnic names in my activities. I talk about what it is like to be a minority in America. When I understand that a student is making a rude comment about a person in the textbook, I alert the Japanese teacher in the room. When a coworker asks a question that is not acceptable, I let them know why. When someone reaches to touch my hair, I remind them that I am human and it is not ok to touch someone without their permission. I try hard to see someone’s negative reaction as based on lack of exposure and curiosity. However, this is a battle minorities cannot do on their own. Ultimately, it will have to come down to Japan’s
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willingness to make a change. But for the time being, all foreigners can plant the seeds for each other while we are here. But despite the negatives, I really do love my life here and experiencing all that Japan and its people have to offer. For every unfortunate interaction, I have had many, many positive ones. When senior citizens stop me to talk and practice their English; when people go out of their way to help me find a location; when someone doesn’t just ask where I am from for the sake of knowing, but seems genuinely interested in learning about my background, I feel like Japan could be home. Even when a friend and I were stopped in the bank lobby for legitimately thirty minutes by a Japanese man who gave us an entire half English speech (with iPad pictures!) about his life in America back in the 80s. It is wonderful to have these moments of engagement and inclusion. And what helps the most is the readily available love and acceptance I receive from the students that I teach. This past summer, as I sat in the ward office helping new ALTs register with the city, an older woman approached me and asked about my black and blue braids. She told me she found my hair beautiful and asked if she could touch it. Ninety-nine percent of the time I reject this request, but she had no ill intention behind her smile. She touched the ends of my hair so gently, and told me she had only seen hair like mine on TV. She seemed genuinely excited to see something different in real life. Her friend walked up and respectfully admired me, but did not reach up to touch me as well. As the general reaction is to grab at me, I appreciated it. I was happy to give these two women a small personal experience with my culture. It was one that I will certainly remember.