Blood type discrimination in Japan
The AP has an article up about the popularity of Blood type pseudoscience in Japan. Included is a section on how people can face discrimination because of their blood type:
Matchmaking agencies provide blood-type compatibility tests, and some companies make decisions about assignments based on employees’ blood types.
Children at some kindergartens are divided up by blood type, and the women’s softball team that won gold at the Beijing Olympics used the theory to customize each player’s training.
Not all see the craze as harmless fun, and the Japanese now have a term, “bura-hara,” meaning blood-type harassment.
And, despite repeated warnings, many employers continue to ask blood types at job interviews, said Junichi Wadayama, an official at the Health, Welfare and Labor Ministry.
“It’s so widespread that most people, even company officials, are not aware that asking blood types could lead to discrimination,” Wadayama said.
Blood types, determined by the proteins in the blood, have nothing to do with personality, said Satoru Kikuchi, associate professor of psychology at Shinshu University.
“It’s simply sham science,” he said. “The idea encourages people to judge others by the blood types, without trying to understand them as human beings. It’s like racism.”
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lol, i don’t even know my blood type
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me either.
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When asked, I say “red.”
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HO HO HO HO (rich bitch laugh) my blood is blue.
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It’s quite useful though, especially if you wound up in an accident and need blood transfusions quickly.
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Even if you get into an accident and you tell them your blood type, they cannot immediately give you a transfusion. They need to start all over and test your blood to confirm what type it is. They do this because if they inserted the wrong blood into you based on what you told them, they can be liable to any damage that was done.
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me2
this is a phobia
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Although I’ve never been “discriminated” by blood type personally, it still is a pet-peeve of mine.
So whenever people ask mine, I tell them I’m the one that can give people of all-types transfusions, which usually draws blank stares. It’s one of the great way to uphold scientific snobbery and kill small-talk at the same time
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“Ehhh? You don’t know your blood type??”
After they recover from that shocker, they usually ask, “But what if there’s an emergency and you have to have blood at the hospital?”
As if the doctors would just trust the patients’ word on it.
“Don’t bother checking, I’ll take a transfusion of ‘A’, please.”
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If its an emergency, it shouldn’t take more than 5min to determine your bloodtype at a hospital. If it is really serious, they would just give you O-, because that’s compatible with every one.
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Considering the rarity of Rh negative blood types in Japan, I would be rather surprised if they just started pumping O-. I doubt they’d even have large stocks of it.
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Hehe, I also got this reaction a couple of times. I honestly don’t know my blood type, but when I’m in the mood I explain, that in Germany a majority has blood type A, as in Japan, so I might also have this blood type. That statement usually makes them happy. ^^
I don’t believe anything about this blood type science, it’s like that old pseudoscience where the form of the head is supposed to determine character traits.
Quite a few Japanese people seem to think that such things are true. I also know a few people who either believe that the lines on their hands have a meaning for the future or claim to be able to read hands themselves. I’ve been told that I have a good money line on my hand. So far I didn’t won the lottery.
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Reading palms is just an excuse to get all touchy-feely with the girls
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but usually girls do it. Hmm… I should learn that or just tell bullshit like you will meet handsome guy who is in front of you.
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In my case a guy did it.
Mmmh, maybe he was gay…
Thanks for the wikipedia link. I didn’t know the correct term.
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Anyone hear about the Hong Kong dude who read fortunes from, I kind you not, tits? What a racket….
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If anyone asks, my blood type is XXX. Because I certainly don’t know it mine, either.
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I noticed this article too and for some reason I enjoyed this part immensely:
The theory was imported from Nazi race ideologues and adopted by Japan’s militarist government in the 1930s to breed better soldiers.
Purity of race is an issue for some people it seems.
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No it wasn’t.
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I’m happy to treat blood type pseudoscience on the same novelty level as horoscopes and fortune telling but the degree to which some very foolish people take it is discouraging. Gotta kill these idiotic concepts before they take root in society.
I’m keeping a close eye on those breast-enhancing thingamajigs a few posts down…
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I have Japanese friends who insist there is truth to blood-type/personality links. I have showed them mountains of scientific evidence against this, in both English and Japanese sources. They still insist there’s SOMETHING to it.
I actually perceive that I have far fewer complaints about Japanese people than the average foreigner, but this one I still hold.
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There are some people that cannot be convinced, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. Like my wife, who actually dragged me along to the hospital and paid for me to have a blood type test to ensure I wasn’t O. I’m not sure what would have happened if I had been….
Anyway, there’s a phrase I like with regard to this: you cannot use rational arguments to change irrational ideas.
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When asked, I always reply, “What do you think?”
They tell me.
Then I ask why they think I “fit” that blood type.
Never tell them first and then let them reinforce their silly thinking by cherry picking personality traits that fit into the system.
Then I tell them they’re wrong
(even if they are right, though they’re usually wrong)
just to show them it’s bullshit.
Though I want to mention the whole Nazi-thinking type connections, I don’t really want to alienate my friends too much over this BS.
They probably just walk away thinking the system must be different for gaikoku-species. Japan is special, don’t you know.
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What’s the type that thinks that blood type personality is bunk? That’s my type!
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I usually tell them I have type C. It’s the green type.
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YES I AGREE.
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YEAS I AGREE
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If its being used like this to discriminate, it is harmful. I didnt know that people where discriminated like this over it. I’m sure that on dating sites, people won’t even consider you if you are a certain type. That is sad. And for companies, imagine if here employees refused to hire Sagittarius or Pisces. That’d suck tough.
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If there is nothing in it, if this is “sham science”, then the companies that hire on this basis are not going to obtain any economic benefits. And once the word gets out (“they only hire Bs!”)… I don’t see any benefits, only disadvantages.
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“I don’t see any benefits, only disadvantages.”
If only companies were actually that logical.
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When asked for my blood type, I say female. And if you keep a straight face, you can persuade your students that female and male blood are different!
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I would tell the students, “If clothing came in only four sizes how well do you think it would fit you?”
Even if there was somehow a correlation (why don’t they prove it by matching up to MBTI or something?), four types is not enough.
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“If clothing came in only four sizes how well do you think it would fit you?”
“That would be great! Convenient! And no more metabo! Good idea!”
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scary! lol
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Not only is there no link between blood type and personality type, there is virtually no link between personality type and work performance.
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Discriminating between people on biological and genetical difference is on dangerous ground. The fact these naive attitudes persist at this level is chilling – history acts as a warning. Dividing up kids by blood type at some kindergartens only goes to reinforce this warped thinking at a young age.
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Same for me i don’t even know mine… Even if i’m pretty about my O blood. Lol
I was speaking about that with Japanese friends, one of them told me something about this blood type issue.
I’m French (by the way sorry for my English) and in my country nobody cares about the blood type. My friend told me that the difference comes from the fact that in Japan, pretty idiot thing to say but still, everybody have the same physical appearence, or everybody is following the one in front…
That’s why they use this blood type thing to make a difference and to “classify” people. A japanese friend told me that, i’m not really ok with this interpretation but it could be considered as a possibility…
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I suspect this article by Mari Yamaguchi is sham.
It is true that this blood type pseudoscience is popular in Japan.
And it is psude-science: you can’t refute it.Whatever blood type, you are a bit of “curious, generous but stubborn” , the personalities that Type Os are suppose to have.
It is something on the level as astrogy, zoomancy(動物占い) oneiromancy(夢占い) chiromancy〔手相占い)
And for the most part, people just enjoy it as a topic for a talk or a conversation-starter but it may be true that some people take it seriously and that some people are disturbed by it;you don’t want to be considered as stubborn, for instance.
So far so good.
But I would like to ask which kindergarten is divided up by blood type when the parents often don’t know the blood type of the child at this age.
I would like to ask which company actually companies make decisions about assignments based on employees’ blood types
Googling. there is no articles in Japanese to back them up.
Instead, you’ll find many articles on the Internet that doubt the credibility of this “theory”.
I think this article is misleading in that it fails to put the topic in the proper perspective in Japanese society and I have a feeling that some journalists will do anything for their articles to gain attentions.
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One assumes it happens, as otherwise people would not be asking about it – Japanese people, asking in Japanese, not foreigner reporters looking for a “Japan is Funny” article:
http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1111492216?fr=rcmd_chie_detail
There is a lot of scepticism about the idea, but we only need one company (or kindergarten) and the idea is not that far-fetched (though of course with no merit).
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Anti-血液型性格判断 websites contain mentions of it like this:
http://www.remus.dti.ne.jp/~nakanisi/ketsueki/probrem.html
It seems to originate from a 2004 episode of あるある大事典. That program didn’t exactly have a record of being reliable, but there’s a chance they didn’t make the story up:
http://www.geocities.jp/hasep2004/bloodtype/prejudice/_4/_409TVinfo.html
I guess the psychologist is referring to this from another link you provided.
We are not sure whether the kindergarten had been divided up or was divided for the experiment.
Here is another TV program, Tokoro-san no me ga ten.
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/NATROM/20081021
The experiment was set up using kindergartner。
I am in doubt because there are a lot of people, myself included, who don’t know the blood type.
http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1411012519
And as the googling shows, educators and psychologists deny the theory. Such as it is, there is little reason why there are kindergartens–educational organizations—which divide the classrooms by the blood type.
I for one read her articles with a grain of salt;she needs reliable citations.
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And what’s really annoying about blood types is that I am actually a very good match for mine…..
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Math’s funny that way. When you have a very small set of variables (i.e. blood types) and a very large sample set (i.e. the Japanese public) mere random selection will create a large percentage of “perfect fits” (especially since personality traits are pretty much a soft definition).
It’s like the old betting scam. Mail out betting advice to 100,000 suckers…er…sports betters at the start of the football season. Half the letters choose one team, the other half choose the other. Randomize the letters to the mailing addresses. Repeat for each game. At the end of season, random chance will mean that a significant number of your suckers THINK you’re a gaming genius, having correctly PICKED all the winners for the whole season. It’s a great scam and even after explaining how it works – most people don’t get it.
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Oh yes, you are quite right – I don’t doubt it. It just makes it hard to deny to believers when they tell you “but you’re such a classic example!” There is also the way the people read what they want to read into things, and remember the hits while forgetting the misses. Ever try reading someone else’s horoscope? Often fits very well.
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I find a lot of this blood type stuff to be amusing, and would tell people not to take it seriously. I used to be into astrology—until I matured more (around 15) and found out that not everyone is the sign they think they are to begin with lol. They say that people with A blood types are known for being shy, introverted, calm, level-headed and serious. Well, I don’t totally agree with that. I knew a couple of people who have B and AB and have really bad nervous disorders. I believe this is all bs.
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