Thursday, April 9, 2009

Some Japanese people stare at me..

...but most of them don't. Culturally speaking, staring is bad, and besides, it's not like I'm the first black person to ever be in Tokyo. It's also typically elderly Japanese men and women who stare.

On the other hand, I get tons of eyes from white people here. Percentage-wise, I definitely get more looks from them. While I obviously don't know their backgrounds nor could I fathom what they're thinking, I often get the feeling they're tourists who are thinking to themselves "There are black people in Japan?". If I'm right, then they obviously have yet to visit Roppongi.

And to add insult to (pseudo) injury, I was reminded today of the historic black-male/white-female relationship while walking around in Shibuya tonight. While walking down the street, I looked up to see one headed my way. But upon seeing the white of my eyes, she immediately clutched her purse and started moving toward the far side of the walk way.

Was that really necessary? In Tokyo? Am I really going to risk prison time (23 days before even seeing a lawyer) and deportation to rip and run her bag? Can't be serious...

4 comments:

  1. some black people stare at me you know, a lot actually :)
    was her bag even designer? i might have risked jail time for that, if it's a miu miu that is :). you should have waved at her or something :)

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  2. Yea I think there's a lot of prejudice in Japan from what I've heard.

    Also, There's a lot of Africans working around the clubs in Roppongi right? That's pretty much the only place we saw black people in 2006 last time.

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  3. Heh, I usually smile at other non-Japanese or do the "whatsup" head nod since I know we both see each other.

    @Peter, I've been hearing a lot about the prejudice through various websites (like debito.org) but have yet to experience any. I'm actually NOT afraid of the police here...

    That said, I still dont wanna deal with the legal system here

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  4. If only you had a basketball in your hand!

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