Walking on the road as a foreigner in Japan

Though not common, I have experience of getting surrounded by kids two times so far. Yesterday was the second of such incident happened. The first incident was on July 2008. I thought of sharing this experience here as it was an interesting experience.

Those kids must be below the age of 7. I was walking on a lonely road at Kiba that lead to the Tozai line railway station. On the way back to home is the time when thoughts of the past try to prevail on the routine work related stress. I found this revisiting childhood days effective to control day to day negative experiences if any, by refreshment.

A tree with deep roots may withstand a heavy storm. It is always the tree that do not have deep roots deracinate in storm. Travelling through forgotten roots rejuvenate and makes them adept to survive tempests.

Yesterday there were 4 kids trying to walk up with my speed of walking, all of them in a celebrating mood as if they have found a new creature from another planet! Those Japanese kids were almost dancing around me. I could hear some words like “Kono hito…” and somewhere in between a sound similar to “gaikokujin”. In total I understood that they were happy to see a foreigner on the street.

Hey, that will be interesting! I should not shout at them to go away like we do to dogs. They are kids and won’t do any harm. This situation might have turned little bit embarrassing to me had it been happened in a crowded place. The road was almost empty but I could see two Japanese women back to the kids when looked back. They were calling the kids, probably to stop running behind me. One of the women ran to catch the kids. When she reached near to me, she said sorry for all the things happened.

She got two kids at her hand but one of them was interested to touch me! She again told so many excuses in Japanese and was almost like getting angry towards the kids for their play. I tried to convey her in my broken Japanese not to scold the kids. It is quite natural for kids to get excitement by seeing a foreigner. I looked different to them from other people whom they daily see. Even though Asians, Indians have different physical figure from East Asians.

I could enjoy the excitement of Japanese kids on the road. Walking away towards the station by saying sayonara to the kids, I was thinking similar scenes when along with my younger brother I walked behind the ISCON group when they camped at a temple in the village near to our home. We saw many white skin people and got excited to talk with them. We did not know what to talk. We guessed they were from America. ISCON were getting a kind of popularity at that time. My brother and I targeted a white man, who showed interest in us with a smiling face when we walked near to him.

When the ISCON group camped near the temple, we approached him but feared to talk with him. He called us near to him and asked our name and about our school. He was surprised to see us replying in English to his queries, because English is not our mother tongue, but still student in villages in India could manage to talk in his language. He gave us sweets from his bag.

We were very thrilled by talking to that American man. Is it not that same kind of feeling yesterday those Japanese kids experienced? Astonishment in seeing somebody different from them, touching a foreigner, talking with a foreigner…….for kids and why even for many of the adults these are kind of different experiences.

And that is what the life is: a collection of different experiences here and there in a chain of repetitive similar experiences.

Japanese houses with Tatami and rent a house in Japan

All praise to Japan till now, here we go a bit sarcastic. This phrase was conveyed to me by a friend: A lucky man is one who lives with an English house, American Salary, French cook and Japanese wife. (This is again praise to Japanese people!)

Then the unlucky man lives with an English Cook, American wife, French Salary and Japanese house! (This one may not be praise!)

Though little exaggerated, the above phrase reflects the traditional belief that Japanese houses are just enough to live. When I entered to the apartment allocated to me I realized it. People with 6 feet height can raise their hands and touch the ceiling. We don’t need to search for a stool to change the lights for example.

Traditional Japanese houses are simple, neat and beautiful. Japanese houses are built with a bedroom with Tatami. The meaning of Tatami in Japanese is ‘folded and piled’. Tatami mats are a traditional type of Japanese flooring. Tatami floors are made of woven soft rush straw, and traditionally packed with rice straw.

The modern Japanese technology uses sometimes styrofoam though it is not widely accepted and not considered traditional. Tatami are made in individual mats of uniform size and shape, bordered by brocade or plain cloth. I am not sure of the exact dimension of Tatami mats, but my boss when he took me to the apartment first time during February 2008 told me that Japanese building standards use different Tatami sizes and bedrooms are identified with the number of Tatami used in a bedroom.

When I changed to a new apartment at Higashi Ojima, my boss accompanied me to select the house. Foreigners may often face problem to find a house in Japan. Many house owners turn their face against foreigners. If approached through a real estate agent, foreigner’s application may be turned down. I have heard of such problems in Japan, where it is difficult for foreign people to find a suitable apartment alone. Many of the house owners have problem in communicating with foreigners.

The language barrier is one of the biggest problems. Also the house owner thinks that due to improper language communication for day to day living, the foreigners may trouble the neighbors. Foreigners come from different background and may not be aware of the garbage disposal procedures and other social gatherings on which Japanese people mix together and contribute to the cleanliness of the building. Japanese house owner is more worried about the interpersonal relationship of the foreigners with local Japanese. Very often this attitude of Japanese people is highlighted as discrimination and racism of Japanese people towards foreigners. If we meet this land owner individually, he is very polite and nice talking and may not have any false prejudice inside. He just wanted to avoid complications (communicating in English with foreigners is a complicated thing for many Japanese people – true!)

Anyway, coming back to our discussion on Japanese houses, the Tatami laid Japanese houses represents Japan’s simplicity even at the height of technological advancements and achievements. Tatami reminds us the nature’s presence inside a Japanese house. Finally at night, for sleeping, we withdraw ourselves from all the modern life stresses and interpersonal strains and go back to the nature! That is a great idea behind Tatami.

Tatami were a symbol of luxury item for the wealthy at a time when lower class people’s houses had mat covered dirt floors. Tatami were gradually popularized and finally reached the homes of commoners around 300 years ago. Otherwise my house won’t have built with a Tatami floored bedroom!

House rent is high in Tokyo. The house rent for my dwelling is $1150 per month, including the maintenance charges. This home is just enough for my family with two kids. In Japan, it is tagged as 1LDK. This means the house is with One bed room, one living room, one Dining hall, one Kitchen. Kitchen is always a part of extension of the dining hall. If we go for more comfort, half of the salary will be consumed by the house owner!

If you are looking for a rented home: http://www.propertyworld.com/_Japan

http://www.sakura-house.com/

http://www.oakhouse.jp/eng/

http://www.arkadia.com/usa/real-estate/for-rent/japan/

http://www.realigro.com/House-for-rent-Japan/index.php

http://www.forleasebyowner.com/x_japan.asp

http://www.housingjapan.net/tokyo_apartment/index.php

http://sabbaticalhomes.com/Home_Exchange_Cities.aspx?country=Japan

Attitude towards foreigners in Japan – Racism in Japan

This blog was running a poll on this subject. The question was;

‘Do you think Japanese people are fairly good to Foreigners?’

78% of the visitors to this blog responded that Japanese people are fairly good to foreign people.
21% of the visitors said ‘To some extent’ Japanese people are good
Only 1% of the visitors told, Japanese people are not good to foreign people.

What I conclude from the poll and along with my 10 months living experience in Japan is Japanese people are really good to foreigners.

Almost 95% of the visitors to this blog are foreigners. Foreigners themselves say that they do not face any kind of discrimination in public in Japan compared to many other countries. Many times the fear of Japanese people to talk in English is misinterpreted as aversion towards foreigners.

My own experience says I have not faced any discrimination till now. I used to commute the heavily crowded Toei trains and Tozai line trains in the morning and evenings. Literally the people are sand-witched. Had any of the Japanese man or woman or children show any kind of dislike towards a foreigner at their face or action, I could have sensed it.

Reading through some Forums for foreigners, I had gone through many statements that they have faced discrimination in Japan. Some of the foreign people said, Japanese people are racists. In one discussion, when I commented that it may be due to the English speaking fear of Japanese people and told my own experience during the past months, I got the answer that ‘Jayaprakash is the lucky Indian’, who have not faced any discrimination till now in Japan.

I really don’t know on what basis some foreigners who lived in Japan say that Japanese people discriminated them. I have written in this blog on June that I used to attend a physiotherapy course for the disc prolapse and sciatic pain. 5 days a week I continued the course for 3 months and now continuing 2 days a week.

The clinic I have been going is having only Japanese staff and nurses. They do not speak English and I am not fluent in Japanese. I am the only foreigner patient visiting the clinic as far as I know. As part of the treatment, the doctor and the medical staff have to touch the body. I have not seen any kind of negative attitude towards me from any of them. In fact they treat me as if I am a Japanese and exchange all kinds of wishing words in Japanese while I enter the clinic and leaving the clinic after treatment.

Coming out of the clinic, I used to enter the nearby convenient store (kombini in Japanese!) to buy snacks and juice. Instead of discrimination, I have seen the little sales girls are interested to receive money from a foreigner!. That was really surprising to me when I thought of the bad experiences narrated in the websites and forums on discrimination of foreigners in Japan.

Frankly and very truly I can say, I have not faced any kind of discrimination or racism in Japan.

To mention one more warm relationship I have with my hair dresser Takagawa san, who runs his Hair dressing saloon near Toyocho. Every month I visit his saloon. He knows my choice in the Indian hair style. Only once for the first time in March 2008 I explained in my broken Japanese to him about my hair style. He do not ask me every month about the way my hair should look like. He knows. He talk in Japanese while dressing my hair. I could catch 20% of his words and the remaining portions I correlate and guess. The communication is all about understanding between two people, not really all about language!

Some day, it will be time for Takagawa-san and his wife to take snacks and traditional Japanese food. All the time they have invited me to join with them. One day, Mrs. Takagawasan gave me a set of traditional Japanese food. At first I hesitated to receive it from them. To be frank, it was due to my fear of getting discriminated from Japanese people as read in the forums and website. But they insisted to take their food and I obeyed.

Having been passed through many incidents of life in Japan and mingled with Japanese people, if I am true to my heart, I can not say that ‘I face discrimination in Japan'. I am really sorry that I could not join that group of foreigners who likes to announce to the rest of the world that Japanese people discriminate foreigners.

For those who say Japanese people discriminate foreigners, I do not have any advise or do not know what you mean by discrimination. But think before announcing: Is it only to catch attention of public, because discrimination is an issue in your own country? So, you want to declare to the rest of the world that Japanese people are also not free from that devlish nature in the mind like your own country men?

Further reading on this subject from experienced people are recommended. click here