metablue wrote:So there are these two completely different experiences of how Japanese interact with foreigners, and I don't really know how to reconcile the two.
I think the kindness offered to foreigners can be misinterpreted by us as "friendliness." Westerners tend to be more accepting of a very open view of friendship. Anyone can be anybody's friend at any time and any place. It's likely because of Christianity and the "brotherhood of man" idea. Treat everyone how Jesus would treat them, and that sort.
Japan evolved in a different direction. Instead of having a goal to remove social barriers, their goal was to make those barriers in harmony with nature.
I don't think either culture has come close to achieving its ideals, but each has done remarkably well...
Anyway, they perceive a "natural barrier" between us. Certainly, some barriers do exist, even if they are not perceived by anyone. However, we find this insistence unsettling because we all know that it's possible to mistakenly perceive a social barrier, and in doing so accidentally
create a barrier where there naturally wasn't one.
Depending on the person, the natural barrier can be largely circumvented through time, gift-giving, trust, and continuous loyalty to each another. But the barrier was created by nature. Trying to erode it down is like moving a small mountain in the mind of a Japanese person. So, instead of fighting against natural barriers, they seek to be in harmony with them.
This means they can be very diplomatic and genial in social circumstances where it restores harmony with the natural order of things, like helping someone who is lost with some directions.
But it also means that, in order to maintain that state of natural order, they will help the foreigner in advance by putting up a sign outside their restaurant that says, "no foreigners allowed." In a way, you can probably see how it's still very much like giving directions!
Why wouldn't foreigners be allowed? Because if it's a restaurant that specializes in distinctly Japanese food and entertainment, foreigners will always be asking questions, not knowing what to do, needing help, not understanding things, and always needing extra attention. It's no one's fault. That's just the way nature is. It's difficult and many times frustrating, and the Japanese need places where, from time to time, they can get away from all that.
So, their perception of barriers created by nature does not mean that they automatically think they are superior (or inferior, for that matter). But, like we learned with segregation, it does set up fertile ground for people of weak character to think one or the other.
Our racial problems were rooted in a dominant master/slave relationship, so we tend to think that segregation is caused by people thinking they are superior, and react to this Japanese behavior with suspiscion. That's a mistake, though. Our relationship with the Japanese is not rooted in that kind of lop-sided dominance. We may have occupied them in WWII, but now Toyota, Sony, and Nintendo occupy our economy, so over time it's been give and take.
I am convinced that there are about as many ways for the Japanese to think they are superior as there are to think they are inferior. That should not cause anyone to think one way or the other. We're different, but we're all human, you know?
I think I'll finish here. But this sentiment about natural barriers exists everywhere in Japanese culture to varying degrees. And, because it's not a straight up "black and white" issue like it was with us and Jim Crow, it can become complicated. For example, two families are separated by nature. Two prefectures are naturally separated. Two Asian countries are naturally separated. And Asian countries as a group are naturally separated from Western countries. But that is not, in their minds, direct cause for antagonization.
We have to remember that we actually
are naturally separated and find ways to deal with that - as long as we are willing to admit that some (possibly many) of our conceptions of the nature of that separation are mistaken, in order to have a truer, more realistic, and more fruitful harmony. 8)
