From: pascal@apd.cpg.sony.co.jp (Pascal Goguey)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: Not a Myth at All
Date: 21 Dec 92 09:56:22 GMT
Organization: Sony Corporation,Communication Products Group Audio Products
	Div,Atsugi,Japan.
In-reply-to: dcroz@twics.co.jp's message of 16 Dec 92 14:23:04 GMT

dcroz@twics.co.jp writes :

>Come again?

	Yes.

>"More than 99% of fish spend most of their lives in water,"
	.....
>It seems to me that the most significant thing that's happening here is your
>unequivocal refusal to consider the possibility that racism is endemic to the
>Japanese culture and volksgeist.                               ^^^^^^^

	Seems that you consider the racism of Japanese people
like a very physical phenomenon, if not genetical (they can't escape
being racist like fish can't escape being in the water)... endemic...
	A few posts more, and you will say : they are racist because
their brain is different.

=}But your reactions to the Japanese's behaviour seem to be disproportioned to
=}their cause

>Them's some pretty radical assumptions behind that apparent fairness,

	Oh, yes! "more than 99%..." is a lot more nuanced attitude!

>Firstly, you're assuming that you have some idea what my
>experiences have been, which is most likely based on the
>presumption that mine have been similar to yours.

	No! I wrote the other day that, assuming that the Japan you live
in and the Japan I live in are the same country. Furthermore, since you
have access to the newsgroups, I can guess that your job doesn't consist
in selling fish or repairing cars. We are then in a roughly identical
working environment.

>Secondly, you're presuming that your perceptions and analyses
>are more accurate than mine, so the things that I see and you
>don't are just signs that I'm "paranoiac."

	No! I presume only that my perceptions are different! That's
why I discuss with you. Talking with a person who has the same opinion
is maybe not worthless, but does not bring very much, don't you think so ?
	I should have said "oversensitive", it would not have had that
"mental disease" connection.

>On what grounds do you doubt?

	I doubt on the only ground that we are living in the same country
(see below) and that we have probably a similar working enviornment.

>On the grounds that you have not perceived it?

	I have perceived that some people do have that kind of belief,
like in any other country.

>How good is your Japanese?

	Good enough to read novels and newspapers, and good enough
to communicate in Japanese in my work.

>Have you considered the possibility that you don't perceive it for
>the same reason that "love is blind?"

	Good example. Belle image, I would say in French! I prefer
loving a woman without paying too much attention small details, or in
other words, without turning small details into big problems.
	Do you like impressionnist painters? If you look at it from
about 20 cm, you see small details, and you miss the image. And if you
get 2-3 meters back to see the whole image, you get something that is
beyond the words to describe it.

>have you been living in a company's tame g**j*n isolation bubble ?

	Let's say gaijin to talk frankly. I'm not isolated. I work
with Japanese and try to show them I can be efficient without working
10 hours a day. I'm the only gaijin in a division of 120 people. I feel
quite close to a few of them, and don't like very much some other, like
it would be in any environment.

>I can prove to an impartial jury that it is a *lot* more than in the
>U.S.or the Philippines.  I don't know about France.

	An impartial jury of American people, or an impartial jury of
Japanese people, or 50%-50% ?

>And are there a lot of people in France who believe that they belong to a
>separate "race" which, for metaphysical reasons having to do with special
>creation, is superior to all other races?  Including but not limited to the
>Swiss, the Germans, the Belgians, and of course the awful Americans?

	I think there are a lot of racists in France. Just look
to the score of Mr Le Pen, and you will have a good idea about it (not 99%).
But few people would admit they are(1). They believe that French people are
blessed by gods, etc... and probably won't admit that French "ethnic group"
is very heterogeneous (like Japanese, by the way).
	What about America? What about the extreme right party? I don't
remember the name of it's leader, but that party got probably a few votes,
right? Don't you think that that kind of people do believe to American
superiority, and that the present economical problems are the result of
am excessive immigration or whatever?
	Same in Switzerland. I have been working one year and half
there, and I can tell you that Japanese (2) are not worse than Swiss people.
N.B: I have nothing against Swiss people either. I have simply been a gaijin
in Switzerland and in Japan.

	(1) that's a kind of tatemae, isn't it?
	(2) the Japanese I have met, though.

ME>Can you believe that?

	The meaning was : Can you believe that tha capital punishmant was
existing in a country which claims to be open-minded...etc...

>Well, I don't know if I can believe it.  Is this one of those "truths" that
>are dependent on time and place?  It's not one of the four absolutes you
>named, so it seems I should be able just to declare it false if that pleases
>me.

	But you can't deny that the "truth" changed in '81 in France, and
that the truth depends on the place, in the USA, for example...
	So, the time and place dependance seems to be proved, right?

>Sorry, but I think you're wrong about that.  In some cultures, which shall
>remain nameless to protect the guilty, gift-giving and placing one's self in
>the "benefactor" or "mentor" position are mechanisms for asserting dominance
>or superiority.  Try to pay the check yourself sometime and see what happens.

	I don't, but I bring every time a couple of video-discs, whisky,
sake, beer, and so on. Nothing happens, so far, except that the friendship
gets stronger. I persist in thinking I'm always welcome in their houses.

	By the way : "...you're wrong about that." Don't you presume here
that your analysis is more accurate than mine...? (cf what you wrote below)

> [[[At this point in writing this note I took my lunch break.  I
> generally go to a little French restaurant rather early, 11:30, and
> sit in the back room.  With luck, I'm finished before the front
> room fills up and other customers overflow into the back room.
> Today I was a little late and the restaurant was a little crowded.
> I left before my coffee because each of the three groups of
> Japanese sitting near me was making hard-core, make-a-nazi-look-
> like-M.L.King racist remarks in voices too loud to ignore.  Tell me
> some more about "paranoiac," Mr. Goguey.]]]

	Never seen such an unlucky man. Oh yes, I have! Maybe among
the victims of the "warau salesman" (ki no doku desu neeee!!!).

>     You seem to be overlooking or denying that virtually all (everybody I
>know or have heard of, anyway) of the people whose opinions resemble mine
>*started out* every bit as giddily pro-Japanese as you.  I don't know of
>anybody who arrived at this position because he *wanted* to, or anybody
>who likes it.

	I'm not pro-Japanese. Neither am I anti-American, pro-French,
anti-semitist, pro / anti anything you want.

	To summarize the situation :
	You write, more or less : All Japanese are racist, I have never
met one who's not. I get aggressed every day... ... ... Maybe you don't
feel it because your Japanese is not good enough (3)  or ... ... ...
	I reply : I think there is racism in Japan as there is racism in
any other country. 99% seems very overestimated to me. Maybe you are not
positive enough or... ... ... Did I deny that there is racism in Japan?
no! That all the Japanese are racist ? Yes, I did deny it and still do!

	Is it a pro-Japanese behaviour?

	There are two ways to see the situation : either you are objective
and I'm a blind pro-Japanese, or I'm objective and you are a blind anti-
Japanese. I wonder if radical opinions like "more than 99% of the Japanese
are racist" can let you any place among objective people. That sounds
logical to me, even for a "logic impaired".

	I have read in a book (I don't remember which one) that the
main difference in principle between French and American justice is that
in France, a guy who is suspected of something stays in prison until his
innocence has been proved, and in America, the guy is free until it has
been proved he's guilty.
	The funny thing is that, for me, french guy, a Japanese is
not racist until I have had a proof he is, and for you, all Japanese
are racist until you find a guy who is not.

	(3) Frankly spoken, I happened to have the same idea. How can
one be so unlucky. Isn't it a consequence of the abusive extrapolation of
the words that that person doesn't understand... But maybe you understand
Japanese as well as a native speaker. In that case, I'm certainely wrong.


--
  Pascal Goguey  Sony Corporation  ($@GC9%7Z(J  $@8d7](J)
  Communication Products Group Audio Products Div
  Atsugi TEC, Japan
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan