Was watching the excellent BBC comedy ‘Little Britain‘ recently and in some way the Daffyd character reminded me of how many of us gaijin act in Japan. No I do not want to be the “only gay in the village” like he does, but there is a kind of anti-racism here when we see fellow gaijin trespassing on what we consider to be our patch. I don’t think I could  live here with just Japanese friends but theres a certain sense of awkwardness when we see one another around the city.

Japan is 97% Japanese people and the other 3% is mainly made up of other Asians so we definitely stand out and when we see each other we never know whether to say hi or not. I don’t see why we should acknowledge each other just because we have the same skin colour and are in a country away from home. Just because we’re in the minority here it doesn’t mean we are going to have an instant bond or whatever. It may be ok in the sticks but not in Tokyo.

Particularly among the men, there is often also a negative view of each other especially if they are with a J-girl as is often the case here. Some of these so-called ‘charisma men’ come to Japan and go from zero to hero. For the record, ‘Charisma Man‘ was a funny comic strip based on a Canadian guy who worked in a burger bar and was a bit of a loser with the local women but when he came to the ‘land of opportunity’ he became a playboy with the girls who were almost ‘fluent in braille’ and just loved the idea of having a foreign boyfriend.