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in reverse. Of course, all the neighbors were already aware of the gaijin' moving in, and so, my wife was met with great hesitancy when she knocked on the door.

Even when they found that she spoke fluent Japanese, and that she was Nisei (2nd generation Japanese), they were still hesitant to be friends; until they found out that I was not in the US Military, but rather, was a salary man' at a major bank. My wife explained their typical conversation to me as being something like:

Wife: "Hello, I am from the family just moving in, and I have brought you a gift for welcoming us into the neighborhood."

Neighbor: (very hesitantly, but polite) "Hello, it is nice to meet you."

Wife: "My family is glad to be in such a fine neighborhood, and we hope that we can enjoy the future as friends."

Neighbor: (still very hesitant) "Yes, we hope so too."

Wife: "My husband works for a bank in Tokyo, and would be happy to talk to your husband about his work."

Neighbor: (gleefully) "Oh, that is very good, we would be grateful to share our friendship with you."

And so on, now that the ice was broken, and we were determined to be not so undesirable' in our neighbors eyes, we could live on equal terms.

As my wife continued to explain to me, the basic problem was that as I was a 'gaijin', they were very worried that I may bring trouble into the neighborhood or, worse yet, that I might come asking them for financial assistance some time in the future. Once it was found out that I had a very respectful and well-paid position, we were acceptable as both humans and neighbors.

Did it have something to do with race? Initially, it did. However, it turned out to be more a perception of income (or lack of income) than race. We later became good friends with our neighbors, and enjoyed many barbecues (both American style and Japanese style) with them. We also enjoyed many daytrips out with our neighbors playing tour guide for us. I only wish that I could have found neighbors such as these in many of the other places that we have lived.

The conclusions that I reached while living in Japan, were that the Japanese were extremely racist in many things, but the racism was not because of the difference in skin color, rather, it was to protect themselves from having an unfamiliar culture from bringing chaos into their well-ordered lives.

Is this to say that there is no racism in Japan? No! Racism is definitely very prevalent in Japan. As a foreigner, you will see many looks of distrust as you walk down the street, you will overhear conversations about you on the trains, and in fact, some people will even cross the street to stay as far away as possible. However, from my personal experiences, I would say that the Japanese people are apt to overcome their racism as they become more familiar with other cultures. Unfortunately, in other countries I have visited, the prejudice lives on despite being accustomed to having a more diverse population.

If you are enterprising, you can make a good living from them while you make them pay for their prejudice.

Learn more about this author, Alan Fernald.
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