Posts Tagged ‘racism’

Japanese netizens reaction to nude photo of Serena Williams

English translations of a few selected comments left by users of 2-channel, Japan’s largest online bulletin board, in response to the news that American tennis player Serena Williams posed nude for the cover of a recent issue of ESPN magazine:

Gross.

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Even though I know it’s gross I couldn’t help but open it.
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Don’t paste such gross pictures.
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I’m not turned on by black (kuronbo) nudes.
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Looks like fried dough cake.
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Black color sure is pretty.
She seems so strong.
But I don’t think anyone could stand up to (keep up with ) her unless they were black …
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If she were white and not black I’d find her about 20% more erotic.
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She looks like Akiko Wada.
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Isn’t sex with black women supposed to be awesome? I mean, they seem to have so much stamina…
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That I’m not turned on isn’t due to her being black but rather a question of the make (of her face).
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I have to tell you, I think it’s erotic.
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Something about it is awesome.
Black people’s skin glitters and is healthy and pretty.
The part I can see, at least.
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If you fight her you’ll definitely lose.
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Standards of beauty vary a lot between countries and races, but is Serena hot to a black person?
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Although I’m looking at this as a Japanese person, she’s a pretty person.
In America special reports on athletes are included but
I was raised in America I wonder if my sense of it has become American-ish.
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It’s good to have a little bit of padding.

Over 500 comments were left in the original thread. Most were negative (about 30 comments compared her to a gorilla), but there were quite a few that thought she looked good.

[The Japanese news article translations in this post were provided by myGengo's simple human translation system and have been revised by helical.]

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
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Japanese comedy: primitive tribesmen with bones in their noses

An interesting discovery I made yesterday while sampling the many Ken Shimura comedy clips available on YouTube:

Those of you who left comments expressing frustration with the use of black facepaint in the Michael Jackson moonwalking competition might have a bit more to say about this video.

The joke appears to be based on the Dani people of New Guinea, who are known to wear “penis gourds” and nose bones. According to the video uploader, it comes from one of Shimura’s Baka-tono DVD’s.

Update: Here is a picture of a Dani tribesman wearing a bone through his nose and a penis gourd.

The bone is not the same shape, nor is the gourd. Still, it seems possible that somebody involved in making the comedy sketch was aware of the existence of such a tribe and made some minor changes to make things more silly.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
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Anti-Japanese hatred grows after “The Cove” is shown in Australia

The Australian media is reporting that there has been an surge of hate directed at Japanese people in Broome Shire, a town that had a sister city agreement with the Taiji, a town in Wakayama prefecture. Anger at Japan forced the town to dissolve its sister city agreement and now graveyards are being targeted:

Councillors of Japanese heritage and others have been verbally attacked in the Western Australian town of Broome, over a dolphin cull which occurs each year in Taiji.

The dolphin slaughter, which is documented in a new movie, “The Cove,” has also led to an attack on an historic Japanese cemetery.

ABC News Australia reported that opponents of the cull hung pictures of dolphins in the cemetery.

The head of the local government has declared that the debate has degenerated into racism and that the people responsible for the graveyard attack were “absolute morons.” Hatred of Japan has also led Broome Shire to cancel part of its annual Japan-themed pearl festival.

It was recently announced that the Tokyo International Film Festival will not screen “The Cove.” The creators of the documentary have claimed it is because the film is critical of Japan. There has been no official announcement of the exact reason for the rejection. I wouldn’t be shocked if the film makers intentionally sabotaged their own submission: news about Japanese rejecting their movie is great PR for their film.

My views on “The Cove” have not changed much since I wrote about it back in 2008. I haven’t been able to attend a screening of the film, but every clip I’ve seen and every article I’ve read confirm what I previously thought: this film isn’t going to win Japanese hearts and minds. It might even make matters worse by deepening the sense that Japan is under siege by cultural imperialists who feel they have the right to dictate the morality of eating certain types of animals.

After hearing about the anti-Japanese hate going in Australia, I searched twitter for comments about the Taiji dolphin hunt. There is a huge volume of “STOP JAPAN FROM KILLING DOLPHINS” comments, and it didn’t take long to find a few that were ridiculous and/or racist:

If you see your friends tweeting stuff like this, please tell them to control their emotions. Don’t let twitter turn into Broome Shire.

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Japanese anime: slant-eyed Chinaman fights Nazi

An old scene from the Kinnikuman anime in which Ramenman (from Chinese) battles Brocken Jr. (from German):

According to the Wikipedia, the series was banned in France because Brocken Jr. was depicted as a “good Nazi.” When Kinnikuman figures and an NES game were released in the United States under the M.U.S.C.L.E. brand, Brocken Jr. was replaced with another character. Somebody eventually realized he might be offensive, so in later cartoons the swastikas on his uniform were replaced with Death’s Heads.

Other notable Kinnikuman characters include the Indian guy with a bowl of curry on his head, the toilet paper mummy from Egypt, the charging bull guy from Spain, the Chilean with a Easter Island Moa head, and TeaPacMan from Sri Lanka. Japan is represented by a samurai and a ninja.

[hat tip to Ken Y-N of What Japan Thinks, who has an article up about all you ever wanted to know about Kinnikuman.]

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