Well, I guess I'll begin by addressing your questions/comments, hopefully in a sensical manner...
Nekogami wrote:What is the Japanese opinion of racism? How is the topic treated? I'm very fascinated by this aspect as it goes back to the illusion of homogeneity that the Japanese seem to hold. This might end up being a separate topic for us to explore but if you could just touch on it, I'd be grateful.
Also: Why do the the Japanese jump to the conclusion that "You can speak Japanese" after a word or so? Furthermore, why do they assume you know the culture? This is something I haven't encountered yet and I'd like to know more about.
Alright, well again, that first question, I don't think I, as a human being, can accurately answer that, because I'd be classifying an entire nation of people into one thing. It's varied, of course. I mean, I once saw a Japanese commercial with big black men jumping around eating bananas, and one person laughed while the other one said it was tasteless racist garbage. Some kids will say "Hey, you're white, you must be great at sports!" while other Japanese people would shake their heads. I think it just comes down to an issue of intelligence/exposure.
There are a lot of Japanese people who have never met a foreigner -- which is easy NOT to do in Japan -- or who go off simply by stereotypes portrayed to them by the media. Then, there are others who have traveled and have a better knowledge of how to, well, basically treat people who look different from yourselves.
About people jumping to conclusions, again, it's different with every person. Most of the time people just like to categorize things, so they will categorize you as a "fluent" gaijin or one who doesn't speak anything at all. Again, it comes down to lack of exposure/experience with foreigners. And I'd say you would probably get a lot of this from older individuals or young kids, but again, I don't want to generalize.
Nekogami wrote: I've been accused of being more Japanese than the Japanese and what fascinates me about that is that ... it's not just about behavior. My knowledge AND my Americanness accentuate anything "Japanese" that I do. A Japanese person with my same abilities perhaps would be faced with a "Sasuga nihonjin is (this service provided by Japanese auto-translator!) ne~! but never with a "You're so Japanese!" Somehow I don't see that being said, but I could be wrong. But someone once said to me that the Japanese assume everything for a standpoint that it's different so when something foreign (not only geographically but culturally) and it's the same, it's instantly Japanese not "hey, this is the same".
You kinda lost me here, I'm not really following your train of thought, and the parenthesis and stuff confused me...sorry. But I agree with you that getting those comments is indeed not about behavior, I was just making an example. The way you look, your status, whether or not you have a Japanese girlfriend/wife, etc...people judge judge judge, and most of the time they do it without even knowing.
Nekogami wrote:For example, she gave the example of how she was hosting some Japanese people and her politeness was construed as "Japanese" but American's can be polite to so was her behavior nation-specific? No, but interestingly enough the Japanese considered themselves the source of the comparison. Does that makes sense?
That's a great example of what we're talking about. Heck, for all they knew, she could have been exercising some kind of European politeness or something...then again, how do you even categorize types of "politeness?" This comes back to people who don't have the experience traveling, or who always look at things through the eyes of their own nation, rather than taking things into an international perspective.
Honestly, if you ask me, I think that Japan encourages this selective nature of "being accepted into Japanese culture" and "seeing how Japanese you are." It's not something automatic, it goes back to tons of history of pride and honor in the island country -- which I'm not saying is a bad thing. But it's like there's this huge game, or competition, or whatever, for people to be accepted into Japanese culture, and then when someone says "Oh wow, your Japanese manner is so great!" they feel like they're a superhero. You can't really blame them, because there's all this pressure coming out from Japan about their "millions of unwritten cultural rules" and all the little hoops you have to hop to to be considered "proper." It's a lot of made-up hype, if you ask me. Go out into the Japanese countryside and you'll see rude farmers that could give the dirtiest American trucker a run for his money.
I wrote too much as usual. :P