From: masuda@fcs280b.ncifcrf.gov (Michiaki Masuda)
Subject: Re: Not a Myth at All
Organization: Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 22:25:02 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.174645.3491@island.COM> fester@island.COM (Mike Fester) writes:
>In article <C0CnFM.4uD@ncifcrf.gov> masuda@fcs280b.ncifcrf.gov (Michiaki Masuda) writes:

>>   The "Foreigners Only" policy that I mentioned above was used to make
>>the place look like popular among gaijin. Gaijin customers sitting close
>>to the window were highly visible from the street and gave an exotic 
>>atmosphere to the place.
.....

>.....if it is done to make the
>place look more exotic, and thus use foreigners as free advertising, doesn't
>the exclusion of Japanese mean the business cannot take advantage of a much
>LARGER potential customer base? Or did the "Gaijin Only" signs apply only
>to the choice window seats?

  As far as I know, that place was pretty popular among young Japanese
(even though I've never been interested in going there and thus never
visited there). Therefore, the business must have been going well.
Sometimes, Japanese customers seemed to have to wait in the line to get 
in. If you are "gaijin," you don't have to wait. You would be coordially
led to the "gaijin only" seat. I heard that "gaijin" seats were
assigned in the area with the best "advertising" effect.

>>  If someone starts to equalize the "gaijin okotowari" policy to Apartheit,
>>the owner of the bar might start "Japanese language only" policy and
>>exclude those who do not have a sufficient command of Japanese (remember
>>the literacy test in the US). It IS possible to maintain their policy
>>in a way that doesn't look like based on race.

>Please explain how this is racist.

   I am not sure what your "this" indicates or what your definition of
"racist" in this sentence is, but I'd like to try to clarify my point that 
I wanted to make with my statement above.

   It is likely that the owner of the bar does not think that his
"gaijin okotowari" policy is equatable to Apartheid or something that
should be called "jinshu sabetsu" because his intention is not to
segregate or humiliate a certain "race". If someone calims strongly
enough that his policy is discrimination based on "race," he
would try to come up with the idea how to maintain his policy in another
way so that it is not accused (incorrectly, in his opinion) as
racism. Considering the fact that there are not so many foreingers who
can speak Japanese as fluently as native Japanese, he might start
using "Japanese language" policy. Apparently, it is not a racist policy.
However, it would work almost as well as "gaijin okotowari."
   Therefore, if the goal is not correcting the "alleged" racist
attitude of the owner but making him accept foreign customers, it
would not be so effective to call his policy as racism which he would not
think it is. Instead, if you tell him that judging a whole group of
people in a stereotyped way is wrong and convince him that there are good 
gaijins and bad gaijins, there is a hope that he starts to look at
each individual person.
 
> The test you referred to in your previous 
>post was the TOEFL. It is given to those who attempt to enter American 
>universities, who come from foreign nations where English is NOT the national
>language. This has nothing to do with race,
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

   This is exactly the answer that I was expecting.
If TOEFL is not a racist exam, how a discrimination by Japanese basaed on
language difference is racist?

>No place I know of requires a language test to be a customer. It is illegal.

   Japan does not require a foreign language test to be a shopowner, either.

>> They might say to a foreigner,
>>"All the vacant seats are already reserved" (as one restaurant in our town is
>>said to do to non-white customers).

>Happened to me a couple times in Japan. Both instances sound racist to me.

   If only you could have proved it.....

>None of which changes the fact that what s/he was doing was racist.

  I don't have any problem with your calling it "racism" in the same sense
with which you might call Arartheid and KKK. If you want to try to correct the
Japanese situation by the same strategy that you would use for ther other
two, that's your choice.

  BTW, what would you think about the "irezumi okotowari" (No tattooed person
allowed) policy that you might have seen just below "gaijin okotowari"?

> Again,
>the only difference is that for some reason, you seem to think the Japanese
>case is somehow more reasonable. 

  Then, you are still taking me wrong. I am not saying that one is more
reasonable than the other. What I'm trying to say is that it is possible
that the Japanese "racism" has different reasons compared with the American
or South African racism.

>Mike
>-- 
>Disclaimer - These opinions are not so much opinions, as pearls of wisdom. Any-
>one disagreeing is obviously either a) a snivelling, whining, mentally-
>deficient, weak-willed, inconsequential, namby-pamby tool of some vague but
>conveniently defined conspiracy, or b) my wife.

Or c)

--Michiaki
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA