About This Website
About "Die Kreuzungsstelle""Die Kreuzungsstelle" is a forum aimed at individuals who are labeled multi/mixed/bi-ethnic/racial and who
were born in Japan (and live there). In this website, there are essays written by individuals who define themselves
as multi/mixed/bi-ethnic/racial, and almost all the essays are written in Japanese, except for the ones on the
English pages(One of the owner's friends helped to translate the Japanese writings into English).

What does "Die Kreuzungsstelle" mean?
"Die Kreuzungsstelle" is a German word that means "crossroad" (to be exact, in German, Kreuzung means"crossroad"). The name was chosen in hope that many individuals will meet at this site and communicate witheach other.
Perhaps, people would imagine that the choice of a website name may pertain to something deep ormeaningful, such as the owner's heritage, but it was not with such romantic reasoning that the name was chosen,
but rather, the reasoning was more practical and the name was chosen for its convenience in finding it in on Yahooor Google search engine.
If the English word "crossroad" or "Kousaten (Japanese)" would have been chosen, this site would not be as
easy to find as it is now, due to the flood of websites using similar names. But this German word makes it easier,so it was chosen. However, if a visitor prefers to refer to this site using another language, such as Kousaten(Japanese), Carrefour(French), Encrucijada (Spanish) or any other language, such use is permitted.

What is the terminology used for multi/mixed/bi-ethnic/racial individuals in Japan?
Haafu is the most popular term used to label "first generation" of multi/mixed/bi-ethnic/racial individuals inJapan. The word Haafu is adopted from the English word "half".
However, there are more names. The typical name is Daburu (adopted from "double"), Konketsu(mixed-blood/race/ethnic), Konketsuji (mixed race/blood/ethnic children), Hapa (originally a Hawaiian word andis not widely used in Japan).
The name Haafu and Daburu will be only used by the first generation and Konketsu and Konketsuji can be
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Hyoue Okamura All Rights Reserved.

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used by every generations, but Konketsuji is politically incorrect and is not widely used. In addition, to label
second generation of multi/mixed/bi-ethnic/racial individuals, whose father or mother were labeled Haafu, isKuoutaa(adopted from "Quarter").
Each name has a different meaning and I cannot say which one is the best. But, at this moment, the mostpopular name used in Japanese society to label the first generation of multi/mixed/bi-ethnic/racial individuals isHaafu.

History"Die Kreuzungsstelle" was set up on September 19th, 2002. During the first phase of the website, the initial
aim was to find out more about individuals with similar interests in Japan and also to prevent the information of
those individuals who are labeled Haafu (or other names).
In Japan, as in other countries, there are many stereotypes about multi/mixed/bi-ethnic/racial individuals.
More details will be discussed in the essays of this site. To give one prevailing stereotype, individuals who arelabeled Haafu are expected to be bilingual in Japan. From my own experiences and from the experiences of others,
I realized not only how predominant this stereotype is, but also how much this stereotype negatively affects thoseindividuals. Because of such situations, this site was set up to eradicate such images.
Since then, some individuals have approved the aim of this site and have contributed essays as well as
comments of encouragement. Currently, the number of the voices represented has reached about 70.
Nowadays, technology had spread so that many individuals can easily communicate on the internet. The ideathat individuals could meet, not only in cyberspace, but also in real life, sparked the start of the second phase ofthe website. On January 2004, a meeting was held in Yokohama and by April 2006, fifteen meetings were held inTokyo, Yokohama, Kyoto. Each time, participants were limited to 4 to 8 persons because such a group size is mostconducive for individuals to get to know each other.
From 2007, "Die Kreuzungsstelle" entered its third phase. The new challenge was to write some articles inEnglish for the following reasons.
In this global age, English is widely used in business or education or many other fields. To communicate
widely, English must be used today. Before this third phase, the information of this site was only available toindividuals who could read Japanese; therefore the audience was limited. But when the articles are written in2
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Hyoue Okamura All Rights Reserved.

www.kreuzungsstelle.com

English, various information and the feelings and voices of individuals can be shared with more people.
During the first phase, the aim was to find individuals in Japan with similar interests. The second phase wascharacterized by the move to meet in the real world. From the third phase, the aim has shifted to disseminate theexperiences of individuals throughout the world. Therefore, to share the thoughts of and information about
multi/mixed/bi-ethnic/racial individuals is the aim of the third and current phase. For this reason, this English page
was created.

About the owner of the website
The owner, Hyoue Okamura(before 2010.9.19 used a penname; Nikolaus Horstmann), who is also acontributing author of essays in this website, was born in 1978 between a German mother and a Japanese father,and has spent most of his life in the Kansai region(which includes the famous cities; Kyoto, Kobe, Osaka, Nara)in Japan.
In 2002, the owner read the influential book,"Amerajian no Kodomotachi"*, written by Stephen
Murphy-Shigematsu, a psychologistand the organizer of "Multicultural Leadership", whose father is
Irish-American and whose mother is Japanese. While reading this book, the owner has started to rethink ofhimself and the situation of the individuals who labeled Haafu in Japan, further inspiring a project that has
culminated in the creating of Die Kreuzungsstelle.

* Murphy-Shigematsu,S., 2002, Amerajian no kodomotachi: Shirarezaru mainoritii mondai (Amerasian children:
An unknown minority problem), Tokyo: Shyueisha.

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Hyoue Okamura All Rights Reserved.

www.kreuzungsstelle.com