The Gaijin Dilemma

When I first came to Japan as an exchange student I use to nod at all the gaijin I saw. Wasn’t sure why, but I felt like I had to. After about a month I realized people didn’t do this. Why the hell was I nodding in the first place? It’s like the Big Lebowski: “You’re a Lebowski, I’m a Lebowski, that’s terrific.” I have now reason to know you anymore than any of the Japanese around us. The fact that we both live in Japan is about as interesting as if we had the same first name.
Anyhow, great video.

Been here 11+ years so far. When I first came here I also tried to interact with every non-Japanese I passed by on the street, kind of like what David says above, out of some sort of expectation that living in Japan was “oh so cool” and that I was somehow “oh so unique”. That eventually wore off, thankfully.

My attitude then was much like I used to do riding my motorcycle in the States, where there was a kind of solidarity among those braving the road on two (sometimes three) wheels, so between most bikers I passed we’d nod or wave or something to each other, even when going in opposite directions if we weren’t traveling too fast. But in Japan at first, I also seemed to run into what appeared to me to be the most surly and gruff-looking foreigners around, the wost of the lot I always wondered (making me take a quick peek in the window at myself, too). Maybe it was just my luck to pass by foreigners who clearly looked like they’d been here too long. At least I know I hadn’t yet, so my only excuse was naivety, I guess, as well as a fair amount of insecurity, as if an acknowledgment from another foreigner would somehow give me another layer of protection against the masses flowing around me. Scary but exciting world then, it seemed.

Nowadays in Japan, I simply smile, or nod, or both. Why? I suppose for a similar reason as among bikers in the States… a quick and honest acknowledgment of some bit of shared experience, which it still is to me, even after living & working here year after year. From all my travel experiences in various countries, both Western and Asian, I still have to say that living as a foreigner in Japan is very different than doing so in more Western countries, and the challenge of surviving it and more, ever the outsider (even if one does well here), is perhaps that implicit acknowledgment I’m talking about. If the other person doesn’t smile or nod back, fine. No loss. I think ignoring them when it’s clear you did indeed see them is a cop out. A smile won’t hurt anyone.

And if I happen to know the person or had met them before, which the longer I’m here seems to happen more often than the laws of serendipity would seem to allow, we go to the local pub for a brew.

Would have liked to have seen the video, though.

I always used to ignore any foreigners I saw on the street, bus, train, etc., until I noticed one day that some of them were my co-workers…

I agree that there is some inborn desire to exchange some sort of greeting, however small, with other foreigners. It seems to be an acknowledgment of the shared situation of being outsiders, which highlights our species’s natural proclivity to make such distinctions in the first place, though I believe the effect to be stronger in a country such as a Japan.

Wow, hearing other people discuss this makes me feel a lot better about the issue! I just came to live in Japan 5 months ago and I noticed this urge right away. If I catch another gaijin’s eye, I’ll nod or smile, but I try not to stare too much (might look a bit weird!). I once had another gaijin catch my eye and give me a ‘thumbs up’, which made me smile because we had exchanged this shared moment without any words.
My husband, who’s Filipino, has unique difficulties with the “gaijin problem”, however. Most people assume he’s Japanese, so whenever he sees a gaijin, he has the urge to nod, but knows they probably think he’s a native. When he first arrived, he had this urge to want to say, “no, no! I’m one of you!”

I reckon probably anyone whos human has gone through this here. Ive been here just over 8 years now, t first I nodded and smiled and wondered why 50% of my targets for small civilities ignored me. After about a year or two I understood and joined their ranks. Now Im feeling myself swinging back more the other way again, though not as much as before. A quick glance to size them up,if theres not even a hint of recognition or return I dont bother. But I dont feel anything bad towards them, I know how theyre feeling.
Ive never lived in any other countries AS a non-native so I cant compare, my gut feeling though is that, at least partly, the need to nod is caused by the locals pointing out to you, at almost every opportunity, that you are NOT one of them.

I don’t nod to strangers that I don’t know except for the seniors. If I pass an old woman, and I make eyes contact with her. , I would give a nod to greet her. It’s like showing respect to the elders. I’m Asian so I don’t know if that’s in our culture or not.

If I’m walking down the street I am usually too surprised to see a fellow white face to make any sensible reaction. Unless they’re in the tourist areas, in which case they wouldn’t be residents (in general) and the matter doesn’t apply. But on the whole I treat them the same as I treat everyone else here. I’m in a regional centre that is a bit off the beaten track (for white people) as it isn’t on the shinkansen routes, but is still a pretty big city, and I can go for weeks without seeing another white face.

I feel adequately ‘included’ as it is without some superficial fleeting contact based on nothing by racial appearance. No, I am not Japanese, and even if I do a Debito and get citizenship I won’t be treated as one by strangers, but it’s not a case of pure In or OUT. There are degrees. You can be IN for one group and OUT for another.

Depends on the size of the city you live in. I used to live in the sticks (yup, JET Program) and when I saw a 6’6″ Kenyan dude walking down the street I started jumping and waving my arms. He was just as happy to see me and we became friends.

On weekend trips to the big cities? Well, I can’t make friends with 5,000 people. I’d either nod or ignore, depending on the reaction I expected.

friendly is the best policy. dont be a wanker. there is nothing i hate more than people looking thru you. ill say hi to anybody if you have caught each others attention for whatever reason – gaijin or not. obviously crowded places dont count – people lose their humanity at some undefined density and just become an obstacle course for me.

a bit off topic, but a similar situation we all experience is the speaking japanese to someone and they somehow cannot understand a word you have said even though you know what you said is fine. anyway, just the other day, i experienced this in reverse. a japanese guy in a resturaunt gave me the nod and said something – of which i made no sense of… a few seconds later, (after the damage was done, with my perplexed look followed by his anger) i realised the guy was speaking english to me. he was actually american of asian extraction, but my mind was in gear for hearing japanese and i got half way thru asking him what he said in japanese before i realised. after that, i ll be a little more tolerant of the next japanese person to blank face me when i speak to them.