Category Archives: Class Pages

Hafu People in Japan

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by Akifumi Kamamoto

I focus on the topic “hafu people in Japan”. When I chose this topic, I recalled what Prof. Robert said to us. His telling was like that: when we, Japanese people, meet hafu people who have Japanese parent and parent from foreign countries such as Europe or America, we regarded them as cool. Also we try to communicate them in English and asked them to speak English. Then we think them as hafu people. However, we regard them as foreign people when we meet hafu people whose parents are from Japan and foreign countries like Africa or Asia. This is because they look like “foreign people”. I could image this situation easily because I think Japanese people generally have the image of hafu people that they look cool or cute and they can speak two languages. However this image changes when we meet the latter hafu people. This division is wrong. Even though I don’t know how all hafu people think that they are called “hafu” and whether it makes them disgusted or not, I think this division is rude to them.

In order to understand hafu people, it is important for us to think about this question “how they want to be called or how should we call them? For example, should we call them hafu, mixed, double or other expression?” If I want to know correct statistics, I have only to take questionnaire, but now I can’t do that. Then, I can state just my opinion. The term “hafu” came from the origin of a word “half”. We can understand that it means that they are not one person but half person. The term “hafu” is a well-known word, but I think it is not suitable expression. Next, the term “mixed” is sometimes used. I think this is the worst expression because this term has discriminatory meaning. I have watched movies in which the term “mixed” was translated into “konketsu”, and in these movies the term included discriminatory meaning. So it is not good expression, I think. In my opinion, the term “double” is the most suitable expression. The term “double” has a nuance that they have two nationalities. The term has a nuance to force them to choose which nationality they will have, too. I think this choice is needed in order to make equal society that all people have just one nationality.

In conclusion, it is difficult to understand “hafu” people correctly, but we need to know them more and more.

Citizenship in Japan

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by Yuuka Kageyama

What is the meaning of being Japanese or having a citizenship in Japan? The answer can be various, depending on the idea of citizenship and when and where is the citizenship used or considered. Citizenship is usually defined as a form of membership in a community. One of the biggest features of Japan is that many people have same or similar culture, language (Japanese) and race, that is, Japan has less ethnic diversity compared to other countries such as America which has so many kinds of ethnic groups and immigrants. However, with the advance of globalization, Japan came to have various people and culture. In this society, how does the citizenship work especially on the immigrants from other countries or people whose parental origin are different from that of Japanese?  Let’s think about it from three dimension of citizenship.

First, in order to hold the citizenship as legal status, people need to have Japanese mother or father. However, there are many immigrants and people who were born and grown up in Japan but don’t have Japanese parents. Such people cannot be “Japanese” in terms of nationality. They also don’t have Japanese passport.  I met a student whose both parents are American but born and grown up in Japan and even have never been to America. He was educated as Japanese and his way of thinking and behavior is quite Japanese. However he doesn’t have Japanese citizenship in this regards even if he spends his entire life in Japan.

Second, citizenship ensures the right of participation in the community. In a society in Japan people who have right to be Japanese have responsibility to obey the law, which gives the government obligation to protect them at the same time. Moreover, individual needs to be treated equally as human right. Although it sounds natural and easy to implement, the reality is that people are not always equal in some part. For example, people who don’t have Japanese nationality cannot be national civil servant and cannot join the government by voting. It is true that there is a difficulty to give every citizen equally the right to be involved in the national important organizations, however, such people as immigrants should also have chance to reflect their wishes in some ways.

Third, citizenship gives people in a community a sense of belonging. People in a community share their own culture, belief, language and so on, which is closely connected with their identities. Immigrants who don’t share such identity can be ‘other’ in the society. The citizenship in this regard is different from the one which come from legal or political meanings.

Immigrants in Japan have still difficulty to join the society there is a need that Japanese government takes measures including achievement of substantive citizenship or expansion of the criterion to hold citizenship.

Mixed-ethnic people in Japan

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by Akisato Fujita

From the readings, I found that many mixed-ethnic children suffer from teasing in the Japanese school system because their appearances are different from others. This time, I’d like to think about the reasons why there is some difficulty of accepting foreigners in the Japanese society and children which have a foreign parent are abused in the school system. It is considered that there are mainly two causes about it.

The first reason is the principle of Japan. Japan is classified into countries which have ethnic nationalism because it has a jus sanguinis principle and it is relatively hard to acquire its nationality. The jus sanguinis principle means that when one of natural parents has Japanese citizenship, their child also acquire it. This principle is usual for countries which have ethnic nationalism. However, Japan has many conditions for foreigners to get Japanese nationality, and the procedure is very complicated compared to other countries. It can be said that that is why there are not so many foreigners living in Japan. It means that most of Japanese people do not have much time to communicate with the people having different backgrounds. Therefore, Japan has too few people who understand them, and has not still created the societies which could accept foreigners, and it also affects the Japanese children’s way of thinking about mixed-ethnic children.

The second reason is the education about foreign people in the Japanese school system. There are basically no education systems in the Japanese school system which teaches children to understand people from foreign countries and mixed-ethnic ones. If there were many children from other countries in Japan, they would not be teased even if their appearances are different from others because spending time with them is usual for Japanese. However, Japan has not still had so many foreign people, so it is unusual for Japanese children to meet mixed-ethnic children. Therefore, it is necessary to teach children other different cultures and identities in order to understand mixed-ethnic people. The problem is that children are not taught about them in the school system now, and it causes some difficulties with many mixed-ethnic children.

For two reasons, Japanese principles and education, it can be said that most Japanese people including children do not understand the people who have different identity. Therefore, it is needed for all Japanese to think about people who have different identities and try to accept them.

What image we should have for hafu?

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by Yuu Yokoyama

I’m interested in the topic; what is the good point by being born as hafu. In the TV which we watched last class, they answered, “People can remember us easily as hafu.” by this question. I was surprised this answer, but I also apply to this answer. We Japanese think hafu as special people and different ordinary Japanese although they are not special human but they are Japanese or another country people like us. This makes hafu different people.

I found out interested blog in which an interviewer asked a hafu person do you have good or bad experience as you are hafu (Joruju, 2011). That person is hafu between Japanese and Portuguese, but he have never been to go Portugal since he was born, he cannot speak both English and Portuguese, he can speak only Japanese and he studied in only Japan; thus his interior is Japanese.

He calls himself as unfortunate Japanese because he cannot speak English, he is not bilingual and he has no English name although he was born as hafu. He said that many Japanese expect he can speak English well and he lived in Portugal, but when people noticed the fact, people are always disappointed.

I think we Japanese take it for granted that hafu people can speak English and they have another name although not all hafu people are so and we are disappointed one-sidedly. Hafu people do not lie and they are innocent. I think it is serious problem.

Although internationalization go ahead, Japanese people still have the different view for foreigners and hafu people; we still judge by appearance. It is not always bad, but we should not have the prejudice for them. For example, my friend who came from Sweden has been studying in Japan for two years, so he can speak Japanese well. However when he speak Japanese outside, Japanese are surprised and looked at him. He said although he can speak Japanese well, Japanese talk to him in English because Japanese think foreigners cannot speak Japanese. He gets angry that thing. This is a little different from the circumstance of hafu but this is the fact that Japanese often judge people by appearance.

We Japanese think hafu people are beautiful or handsome, we often say “ Hafu! Urayamasii!” However, we should not jump to that conclusion. We have to think about hafu again because they are not special, same human. We should not judge by appearance. Hafu people have the same mind with us.

References
Joruju. (2011). What is the good point as hafu? Retrieved October 11, 2012, from http://theinterviews.jp/flyer-to/1117506

From reading “‘hafu’ in Japan”

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by Misa Takahashi

I would like to talk about hafu in Japan. There is Japanese idea which hafu lead to a feeling of privilege and to heightened self-esteem (Kamada, 2008), many people maybe this is true, but I don’t think every ‘hafu people’ feels a sense of superiority in the term of ‘hafu’.

I read a story when I was in an elementary school, this story is engraved in my memory－the boy said to his mother, “ Mom, am I 1/2 (hafu) ? Am I different from my friends?” Mother answer, “you are not 1/2 (hafu). You are ‘double’.” He became to feel that he is ‘double’ rather than ‘hafu’, he gained a self-confidence.

In this story, I think that there are 2 problems. First one, almost of all people have a fixed idea which term of ‘hafu’ only means superiority. The dictionary means of ‘hafu’ is 1/2 (半分). Person is 1/2? This is real superiority term? I don’t think so. However, no matter how I call mixed-ethnic person ‘double’, I can’t fully convey the term because people think that mixed-ethnic person is ‘hafu’. They don’t recognize that calling ‘hafu’ has means (but, in these days I believe ‘double’ is good term, so I can’t criticize them.). Second one is problem of how to call ‘quarter’. In fact, there is the oppositional term to ‘hafu’, ‘double’, though this is not usual and truly good, but there is no oppositional term to ‘quarter’. ‘hafu’ problem is tend to only selected, but there are variety mixed-ethnic people and many variety problems. For example, one of my friends, she has a Brazilian grandmother, when she was called ‘quarter’ by friend, she was not glad that (the friend didn’t mean any harm, rather than it means superiority). If she is ‘hafu’, we can call her ’double’, but she is not also ‘hafu’.

In modern century, traffic technique has been developing, and the number of immigrants from foreign countries has been increasing rapidly in Japan. Many race, groups, and variety sense of values are maybe intermingled in the future. In conclusion, I think that calling ‘hafu’ should be stopped, so we have to realize that calling ‘hafu’ is hurt his or her feelings, after all, we should recognize that the existence of terms of ‘hafu’, ‘double’ and ‘quarter’ hurt mixed-ethnic people’s feeling because we separate ‘we’ and ‘others’, ‘we’ and ‘different’ unconsciously by calling these terms.

Experiences of Hafu in Japan

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by Suguru Kobachi

Last class, we talked about hafu in Japan. First of all, is the word, hafu, okay to use as a way to call them. The word hafu comes from the English word half, and some people might consider themselves as not a complete person if they get called this way. Some other words that we came up in class that we could use to call them were mixed, hybrid, and etc. If we were to change the way we call them, I thought the best one would be hybrid even though it sounds a little weird when it’s used for calling a person instead of machines. Mixed sounds more discriminating because we use mix for dogs and other animals and I think that it’s not the right word to describe a person.

Before I listened to what we talked about in class last week, I’ve never thought this much about what hafu meant and what it means to the people being called hafu. But what I was thinking while we were having this discussion in class was that, “Is being called a hafu, such a bad thing?” If this word was being used in a discriminative way, it’s definitely not good, but in Japan, the majority of the people assume hafu as a good characteristic. Everyone is jealous because hafus are pretty and handsome. In my opinion, if I was a hafu, I think that I would be proud of the fact that I am hafu.

But I wanted to hear other people’s opinions about this topic too so I had a small discussion with my family members. An opinion that I agreed with them within the discussion was the fact that we, as in the Japanese people calling these people hafu doesn’t sound bad at all from our point of view. But if you look at it from the hafu people’s point of view, they might have a different way of taking the meaning of the word. If I was a hafu, then I might have had a different opinion about this topic. As a result, I think that even though if that person is a hafu, if they are living in Japan and are acting like a Japanese person, we should consider them as a Japanese person and treat them the same way as any other Japanese person would be treated.

Skin Lighteners and Racial Betrayal

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by Minako Sanda

After World War II, South African companies began to manufacture skin lighteners that were aimed for African dark-skinned women in and out of their country. Although the South African population is mainly divided into four categories (European, Asiatic, mixed and other colored, and native people), the special encouragement of the companies to use skin lighteners flourished in the market, especially in urban areas. Young women in such areas were remarkably enthusiastic to lighten their skin in terms of getting the urbane appearance, I assume it happens in elsewhere of the world’s most urban areas that people define beauty by showing what they can afford, to elevate their position to a higher social status. These people used skin lighteners not merely to make them look whiter, but some of them simply wish to eliminate their blemishes on face, some wanted to fix their sun-damaged skin, and others just wanted to have smoothing effect on their skin. However, disagreed to such a big trend of skin lighteners, two types of critiques on skin lightening products existed among South African society. One is that African political leaders who are mainly consisted by male nationalists say that the use of skin lightning is a racial betrayal against “black is beautiful” or ”the black movement”. At that time in 1970’s, according to marketing survey, such approach from ‘black pride’ was recognized, however, the number of people who want to buy skin lighteners were similar to the number of people who said they don’t buy because they are proud of their skin color.

The interesting point in here is that it’s only taking a serious look at black becoming whiter as ‘racial’ issue. If changing your original features of your race were thought to be race betrayal, no one would hardly see any of beauty products making such a huge amount of money in this global world. Race betrayal is happening in many ranges, like EMINEM being more like black while South Asian females encouraging plastic surgeries. The preference of white people getting bronzed by tanning should be, in the extent of a pure white race, a betrayal act. One another thing I thought was that making black people willing to change their appearance by lightening their skin or straightening their hair, happened to be one-way direction of marketing on them; if not tanning for black, then go for lightening.

It is sad to think that most of the features we see in beauty were created, or at least manipulated by marketing companies. I’m shocked to see people sell whatever they want to sell, and people buy whatever they get to satisfy their belief in beauty, and how powerfully affect own health. Similar to the topic, I disagree with wearing high-heels. They might make my legs nice and long for now, but there is no evidence that the preference in heels will remain in 30 years later. This can be same as skin lighteners, colored contact lenses, hair products and nearly every products made by a fixed idea of beauty.

It seems like ‘unhealthy life in the future’ is commonly seen as a important feature in current beauty products. I rather think what beautiful means should be re-defined by each individual instead of marketing cosmetic companies that selling mass-producing artificial, toxic products to make us ‘beautiful’.

Skin Lighteners in South Africa

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by Maiko Takada

I would like to discuss about the issue of “betraying the race” by examining the discussion question from class.

The first question is “Does betraying the race happen not only when people try to whiten or lighten their skin color, but also when people try to get tanned or darken their skin color?” My answer is, “It depends on the purpose or reason that you change the skin color”. In the case of South Africa, one’s racial category determined most life outcomes. Whiteness, purity, and social power are strongly connected. However, if your skin color was black, you are not able to get well-paid job or higher social status. In addition, people do not see you as an attractive person because of your skin color. Therefore, black people are eager to whiten their skin color. In other words, they aim to racial uplift by using skin lighteners as technologies. On the other hand, in the case of white people or Japanese, they go to the beach or pool side to get tanned because they enjoy seasonal benefit or vacation. Those ideas are similar with “Eat watermelon because it is summer” or “Let’s have a massage because we are vacationing at hotel”. It is clear that they are not trying to darken their skin to live in better life in the society. The differences between the two cases are that denying own feature or changing appearance for fun. People get tanned not because they are denying their skin color but black people abandon their blackness and eager to whiten the skin color. In conclusion, if people are not proud of their natural skin color and try to get tanned to change the race, this would be called “betraying the race”.

Second is “Are there any action which are seen as a betraying the race besides changing the skin tone?” Hair straighter, color contacts, and high heels were suggested as the examples in the class. When I was in high school, there were many girls who use hair curler because they think they look cuter with curly hair than straight hair. American celebrity Taylor Swift sometimes appears with straight hair although her hair is naturally curly. One of my Japanese friends showed up with gray eyes and said that she is wearing color contacts which she wanted to have for a long time. I can see many girls in high heels at the university, station, or shopping mall. In my opinion, those cases are closer to the case of getting tanned than using skin lighteners in South Africa. Because they seem like they just enjoy the fashion. Thus, I do not think people are betraying the race in this case. However, as Misa explained in the class, if Japanese people wear blue color contacts to pretend different race for example, then it could be “betraying the race”.

Fair Enough?

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by Misa Fukutome

Since the Internet became easily accessible for the majority, looking for partners has also become a common activity. The demand on what is written on the profile is also something important, because despite all the suspicion there is something that you always look for in a person’s profile that makes you want to meet him or her in person. In class, there was an opportunity to write our own hypothetical profiles. However, at first there were questions about where the profile would be displayed, in a Japanese, internationally or on any other country’s website. This triggered a realization for me, below there will be two types of profiles one made for a Japanese website and one for a Swiss website.

An ad on a Japanese website:

Age: 21

Height: 163cm

Sex: Female

City: Kyoto

Nationality: Swiss/ Japanese

Self-Introduction: I grew up multicultural, mainly lived in Switzerland until I came to Japan 4 years ago. I enjoy sports very much, also cooking brings me joy. Currently I am a student and am looking for a man who is around the same age and does not mind a strong personality but out going.

Of course there are a lot of reduction in this profile, however the emphasis in the profile is made on the fact that I do not have much Japanese in me. Also, the demand I have for the other is not very clear because in reality I am not expecting to be dating a Japanese so it was hard to set a demand. Now what does the profile for the Swiss website look like?

Age: 21

Height: 163cm

Sex: Female

City: Zurich

Nationality: Japanese / Swiss

Self-Introduction: I have black long hair and have a fit body. I love sports and I like keeping in shape. I love cooking and relaxing. I have a bright personality, out going and am independent. I am looking for a partner who does sports and enjoys sharing ideas and point of views.

As mentioned before, this profile is brief, but still there is a change in tone. The profile focuses on the looks and the order in putting nationality; in the Japanese ad, I put Swiss before Japan and in the Swiss one the other way around. This is because, in Japan, it is more likely to get attention if you are “gaijin,” an opposite. In Switzerland, “half” are considered exotic not only that but also as Asian beauty. The conclusion would be that there is not only the person looking for a curtain race or skin tone but also people selling their own skin color or race to attract the other.

Filipinos and the Color Complex

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by Misa Fukutome 

During class a lot of questions and topics were thrown about still, it has ended without getting closer to a theory or something clearer. The discussion started with those three questions.

  1. Why do Japanese cosmetic commercials use only Japanese models to represent?
  2. Since definition of beauty has changed through out the centuries do you think that the sense of beauty will stay “light” or shift to “tanned”?
  3. Do you prefer “skin-whitening” or “skin-lightening” ?

Breaking down the first question, the book mentions that it is common to use mixed-race models, mixed-race as in half-Asian half-Westerners, for cosmetic commercials. Since they have some Asian features, they can feel a connection. However, in Japan it is less common for mixed race models, such as Becky, for cosmetic commercials instead there are Japanese or Asian mixed-race as models. Therefore, my presenters and I came up a theory, which is that Japanese people have the impression that Western mixed-race are a “perfect” or “ideal” feature that they don’t need anything more to get better, meaning that it contradicts with the reading that they are able to connect to the models. Then, the theory is that for East Asian it is their goal to look more western and “exotic”. However, for the South Asians their goal is to look East Asian with lighter skin but still maintain their Asian features.

The second question, the possibility of the shift in definition of beauty from “light” to “tanned”. This is all about what the market demand is. For now, Westernization has been a big influence, nevertheless this can change and the influence from China could be the next market and their sense of beauty becomes the demand. That is why the sense of beauty might change in the future, or even looking into the past one can see the shift in the change of beauty. Even in Japan, there was a time where they thought being “tanned” was beauty, where as now they would do anything to stay “white” and to remove the dark spots from their skin.

Then what is the difference between “skin-whitening” and “skin-lightening” if there might come a time where it will turn into “skin-blackening” or “skin-darkening”? This brings us to the third question. This “skin-whitening” and “skin-lightening”, is it just word play or is there a focus for different types of complex? The presenters and I thought that the two have a difference in the sense that the consumers are different. For the “skin-whitening” it would be focused on the African American consumers who want to become European, where as the “skin-lightening” is for the Asians who want to keep their Asian features but just purify and cleanse their skin. Is this just a naïve assumption that we do not sound racist?