Japanese culture tours for foreign tourists
A 10-minute clip about special tours for foreign tourists visiting Japan (from Real Time News):
The report says that tours offering foreigners a chance to experience Japanese culture are particularly popular. Two examples are given.
The first tour shown is of a “samurai dojo” in Tokyo where foreigners are given a chance to experience sword fighting. After watching a few professionals who do sword fighting in movies and TV shows demonstrate some techniques, the foreign tourists are given a chance to swing around some wooden swords. An Israeli woman who participated in the tour tells the reporter that she had a lot of fun and she might use some of the techniques she learned in the next fight she has with her husband. (The tour costs 12,000 yen per person, and is organized by HIS.)
Most foreign tourists who visit Japan spend some time in Tokyo, so nearby Saitama is trying to attract some of them to its famous sites. The Saitama prefectural government and HIS have started a “True Japan” tourism program that urges foreigners to “Come to SAITAMA, Next to TOKYO.” The second tour shown in the news report is their “Wear Kimono in Kawagoe with Onsen, Dinner and Samurai Geisha show” tour.
The tour group consists of five foreigners and three Japanese people. After some initial explanation of the contents of the day’s tour, they are taken to a kimono rental shop. While they are trying on kimonos, the shopkeeper tells the camera that foreign tourists tend to pick color combinations that few Japanese people would choose. The foreigners seem pretty happy with their kimonos, but the narrator of the report notes that they are a little too tall for what they are wearing and some of them must wear zori that are too small for their feet. (Apparently HIS, which charges each tourist 13,800 yen, did not think of preparing a few pairs of larger sandals.)
The kimono-clad foreigners walk through the streets of Kawagoe, sampling local foods and enjoying the atmosphere of the old town. They also attract Japanese onlookers who compliment their beauty and want to take photos with them. The French girl notes that she is used to being on the other side of such exchanges.
Their next stop is an onsen. After listening to a quick explanation in English they are given a chance to relax in the warm hot spring waters. Afterwards, a Spanish guy and an Australian guy who are part of the tour group comment on how the onsen felt great and helped them relax.
While they are at the onsen, something odd is going on at a nearby restaurant/theater. When told that a foreign tour group would be coming, the restaurant staff had assumed that “gaijin” would not like to sit on tatami mat floors, so they set up chairs on top of the tatami. When the foreign tourists found out about the weird arrangement, they insisted on sitting Japanese style.
As they finish their meal, a performance of “Mabuta no Haha” begins on the stage. The play is entirely in Japanese, but the actors insert a bunch of katakana words into the play in an attempt to entertain the foreigners in the audience. Most of the foreigners can’t understand a word of the “English” thrown into the play, but they still get some entertainment value out of it. As the tour ends, most of the foreigners declare that they enjoyed the tour very much.
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Was there Naruto music playing during the sword scenes?
I lived near Kawagoe for a while and also visited it for a festival, which was quite fun. I don’t think they had these tours back then.
I was asked by my japanese friends at the beginning of our friendship if japanese-style sitting is ok when we went to izakayas for the first copule of times.
I think it’s ok to ask, as sitting on tatami might get uncomfortable quickly when you’re not accustomed to it.
To just assume something however can sometimes alienate and offend people and should therefore be avoided when there’s a possibility to simply ask.
Now people who are familiar with using chopsticks when eating might feel offended when being asked if they can eat with chopsticks, but they tend to forget that those questions are not only based on ignorance but sometimes also on previous awkward moments as really quite a lot of western people are not able to use chopsticks without making a mess.
Ah yeah… HE SAID GAIJIN, HE SAID GAIJIN! ;P
Given that Japanese tourists travelling outside Japan were almost always accompanied by Japanese tour conductors and Japanese tour guides surely gaijin tourists in Japan should have gaijin tour guides ?
It’s odd really – is it overseas tour companies being lazy and fobbing them off to Japanese, who love the opportunity to give the visitors their view of how Japan should be seen, or are there actually barriers to foreign tour guides? I don’t necessarily mean it’s actually illegal, but things like exams or something to take to be qualified that most non-Japanese can’t be bothered with. Or, more likely, a combination of both.
I think I’ve seen that theater troupe before… I didn’t catch a name though in the video.
I thought it was pretty funny that they katakana-ized the foreign girl’s Japanese. Is that the norm?
It is the norm when you want to make it clear that the Japanese is broken Japanese – or in general foreigners speaking Japanese, as we all know that foreigners can’t really speak Japanese. It is similar to when US documentaries overdub a Japanese person speaking Japanese with a person speaking with a thick Japanese accent. It calls unncessary attention to the fact that this person is foreign, and is rather offensive.
Some of the tours on offer in Saitama did actually look like they show a bit of the “true Japan”–for example going to an Urawa Reds game or an izakaya–but this segment very ironically focuses on the more stereotypical elements of Japan like martial arts, kimono and tabi socks. And then, goes on to to trot out all the most hoary stereotypes of and condescension toward foreigners: they are large, prefer loud colors and have a hard time sitting seiza style, but my, aren’t they good with those chopsticks!
On the other hand, this type of tour is certainly better than the traditional Japanese package tour on which the participants only meet other Japanese people and have almost zero interaction with the local inhabitants of the country they are visiting. That’s the kind of travel that narrows the mind rather than broadening it and buttresses stereotypes rather than breaking them down.
well for one i still dont think what they’re doing in the video are “true japan” stuff. All these sumo wrestling, kimonos, ninjas and sushi are the typical image of westerners about japan. If you think of the american equivalent it would be baseball, steak, cowboys. Pretty far from reality hehe.
If you really want to experience how it is like being japanese then you should really live in japan. Riding a train on rush hour, working yourself to death, eating bentos in convenience stores, ordering ramen in a vending machine, these small things really matter the most
What you referrer to are not as much fun. There are a lot of things Japanese do in daily life which can be fun and culturally Japanese enough. These are, going to public bath (Sento), eating delicious Rahmen or Yakitori in restaurant, eating Sushi in Kaiten-zushi restaurant, buying glossary things in 100 Yen shop or taking a Sauna and sleeping in Capsule Hotel.
100 yen shop is for the rich only.
The only shop I can afford to buy those items at is Shop QQ (99 yen shop)
Fun is not the only reason for experiencing things. One of the things my parents most talked about after they came to Japan was how we took a commuter train out from Tokyo at rush our. It certainly wasn’t a lot of fun at the time, but it equally certainly gave them an interesting experience and insight into Japan, so was definitely worth it.