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Current news recalled two holiday memories about Japanese tourists.
The first one took place when I was a small child. We visited Switzerland and were sitting in a little train that carried us up a mountain. We had to change often, for the trains in Switzerland are adjusted for the slopes they tackle and this one was neither a regular train, nor a typical mountain train. It carried mainly tourists, Germans, British, Americans and a lot of Japanese.
The cabins were crammed and we had difficulty to find a place where we could sit with the whole family, but at last we found one, surrounded by Japanese. Somehow they thought my dad was Japanese too, for they addressed him in their language, until they found out he didn't understand a word of what they were saying.
We had an enjoyable ride, until the door was opened and an American entered, a small man with eyes too close to eachother. As soon as he saw a cabin full of Asians, he started shouting. At the time I didn't understand any English, but I saw my parents growing worried.
A young man walked up to him and tried to calm him down, but it only seemed to infuriate him more. It looked as if the old American wanted to smash the young Japanese's face. As he grew ever more aggresive, we left the cabin and searched for another seat. My parents explained that the man had fought in the war and that he hated Japanese. I think it's the first time I ever heard the word 'Jap', for that was what he had called the young man...
The second encounter was on a boat in Greece. Again the place was filled with European and American tourists, but it appeared there were no Asians until a shy couple entered. They looked around and saw that many of the tables were already occupied. After a while they came up to us and asked whether the empty seats were taken. Like the tourists in Switzerland, they thought we were partly Japanese, but when they found out we were not, they had no problem speaking English. We talked about Greece, and where we came from. They had been in Holland a few days and liked our tiny country.
Then a couple of noisy ladies entered. They chattered in Mandarin, looked around and noticed the table where we were sitting. Promptly they occupied the table next to ours. Their guide tapped the Greek guide as she passed us and bluntly wished to see the information she carried on a clipboard. It contained a description of the places we would visit in Greek, English, German, Spanish and Japanese, but not in Chinese, so she wanted to copy it and translate it for her guests.
The noisy ladies appeared to be from Taiwan. They laughed and giggled like teenagers, ignoring the other tourists. The Japanese and we looked at eachother, not knowing whether we had to laugh or to be emberassed.
But then one of the Taiwanese ladies took a whole load of sweets from her handbag and she turned around.
" Candy?", she asked.
We took the sweets from her and I saw how a broad smile appeared upon the Japanese lady's face.
" These are Japanese sweets!", she exclaimed and she looked at the woman who had given them with a surprised gaze.
She nodded. " Indeed. They're very tasty."
It seemed Japanese and Chinese could get along well, once the ice was broken...
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Written by stevetroster (1588 comments posted) 12th April 2007 | Re; the American. He is so much like a lot of British people who seem to find it impossible to forgive and forget when it comes to the German's (even those who are not old enough to have been involved in the war!).
If you don't mind me asking, what is your cultural heritage? It is not clear in this piece and I feel that I would better understand it if I knew who you were.
Best wishes
Steve. |
Written by Fledermaus (3448 comments posted) 12th April 2007 | Thanks Steve.
I'm partly Chinese, partly Dutch, so that might probably explain why people usually don't know where I'm from  |
Written by rui (150 comments posted) 12th April 2007 | | The British (and their colonies, inc. the US) are most gracious in defeat, but are perhaps the sorest and most arrogant of winners. I don't get the impression that the continued hostility towards Germans is due to lack of forgiveness, so much as that they want the Germans to know exactly who won. They're also still giving the French a hard time, but the battle of Agincourt was 600 years ago. |
Written by Witzl (1585 comments posted) 12th April 2007 | Hello, Fledermaus. When I lived in Heusden, my Japanese boyfriend got mistaken for an Indonesian all the time. One day, we went to the local Chinese restaurant and the kids there, who barely spoke Chinese, could not stop staring at him. We tried to talk to them, but neither of us could speak Dutch.
The other day, my eldest, blonde and blue-eyed, was walking down the high street in town. She heard Japanese being spoken behind her and wheeled around, exclaiming 'I speak Japanese too!' She claimed that the Japanese tourists almost did a double-take, they were that surprised.
I suspect that in a few decades, stories like that will be very commonplace as more and more of us learn each other's languages. But I guess I'm a dreamer. | HI Fledermaus
Written by jean.day (2327 comments posted) 13th April 2007 | I enjoyed reading this and learning a bit more about you.
Two of my sister's children married Viet Namese - who came to the States as boat people. But my niece was upset at the discrimination her tiny children were receiving in a little town in Minnesota, so they moved to a big city in Wisconsin and things are better. And my nephew's wife said she needed to live somewhere where she wasn't always being pointed out, and treated as someone different so they now live in Colombus, Ohio.
For America supposedly being a melting pot, it still has a lot to learn about integration. |
Written by Bottleblondesurfer (3450 comments posted) 13th April 2007 | A very interesting piece that has,as usual with you, provoked some intriguing comments.I do think it is the older generation that reacts as your American did, although I disagree with rui: distrust of the Germans is deeply set as any country that attempts world domination twice in one generation is bound to be suspect for a while And the French still haven't forgiven us for liberating them in WW2 and probably never will
cheers
Jane |
Written by Fledermaus (3448 comments posted) 13th April 2007 | Thanks rui, Witzl, Jean and BBS.
rui: I guess you're right. Britain probably did as much damage to Germany as Germany did to them. Quite unlike some other countries, where the the population suffered severely and which were unable to hit back (Norway, Poland, Serbia etc.). As for the French, I think the British are still not over the Norman conquest and the fact that 1/3 of their vocabulary is French
Witzl: The world is changing indeed. I was sitting in the train lately and I heard some people speak Japanese (I can't understand it, but I do recognize it). When I looked, they were two European boys. Perhaps in a similar situation as your kids.
Jean: That's realy sad. I never know what to think about the US, as I hear such different things. On the one hand there are stories of blatant racism, on the other hand I heard from African people who moved to Chicago, that they felt much more at home there than in Holland, as there they were not judged on the colour of their skin. It's a big country of course...
BBS:
I didn't understand what the American was saying back then, but perhaps he had suffered like the old man in Witzl's 'The emperor's legacy' script.
As for English and Germans. Looking at British comedies I do think Britons simply like to make fun of other nations (and of themselves). I once saw an interesting documentary of how British and Germans portrayed eachother through the centuries. It seems that around 1800 the Germans were shown as lazy, bratwurst eating wimps (because they were scared to fight the French), but gradually the image changed into that of a militaristic monster who tried to take over the world. It seems France and Germany have switched places in British cartoons. |
Written by Witzl (1585 comments posted) 13th April 2007 | We have friends from India who are raising their daughters half in Northern Japan, half in Bangalore. When they go traveling and their kids prattle away in Japanese, they tend to turn heads. I used to pass a university foreign student housing complex on my way to work when I lived in Northern Japan; it was fun to hear little kids from Africa, China, Indonesia, Europe, etc. quarreling in Japanese.
As for your angry American, I used to have no time for fellows like him and assumed they were all racist. But I once got told off by an older Japanese man for saying as much; he said 'You have no idea what happened during the war, so you shouldn't judge him.' I'll never forget that; it made me want to learn what had happened.
America can be very racist, even places like California that normally get good press. I went with some acquaintances to a mall in my hometown ten years ago. Several new businesses had sprung up -- Indochinese dry cleaning, a Vietnamese grocery store, a Korean green grocer's -- and I was thrilled to see this. The people I was with expressed fear and disgust -- the signs were not in English, you see, and this made them uncomfortable. I could hardly get enough of diversity, but even a whiff of it made them uneasy. |
Written by Fledermaus (3448 comments posted) 16th April 2007 | Thanks again, Witzl.
I'm sure war can make people crazy. I once read about a Dutch writer, who had been in a Japanese concentration camp. He once visited Japan to promote his book. After his speech, an old man came up to him and asked if he wanted to hit him. The writer was rather surprised at this question, until it turned out the old man was the commander of the camp where he had been imprissoned...
As for racism in the USA... It's a shame that there's still so much of that going on. Yet I doubt if it's very different here. The Dutch used to claim being the most liberal and tolerant people in the world, but it seems there were just a lot of sentiments which weren't expressed until Pim Fortuyn made them 'acceptable'. |
Written by Witzl (1585 comments posted) 16th April 2007 | Fledermaus, if you get a chance, you should try and find the book 'Last Man Out,' which has an account of Dr Henri Hekking, one of the Dutch-Indonesian doctors who helped save a lot of lives on the Burma Railway. His story is incredible, and very encouraging. One of the books I read also had a wonderful story about how one Chinese family in Burma/Thailand managed to smuggle news and medicines to the prisoners at great danger to themselves.
When I was still in Japan, I remember reading about a Dutch man who went back to the coal mine where he had worked in Fukuoka and insisted on having a proper memorial built there to commemorate all the boys and men who had died there in terrible conditions. He also wanted to find the one Japanese man who had been kind to him -- and he did. I've just managed to find his story on the Internet too, and if you're interested I can send you the URL.
When you read about what some people went through during the war, it is just mind-boggling. Part of me is sickened and discouraged to think people could do such dreadful things; part of me is amazed and heartened to think that others managed to survive them. |
Written by anorwegianwood (278 comments posted) 16th April 2007 | Wow. The comments this has inspired are just as interesting as the piece itself. I thought it was a really interesting perspective to read.
Discrimination is so complicated. We keep hearing all the debate about Mexican immigration in the US. There are about ten different sides to the issue, it's impossible to keep up with who thinks what anymore.
One thing that kind of amuses me about the US is that we're actually NOT a melting pot anymore. Now, we're supposed to call ourselves a "salad bowl," because we're a collection of cultures living together like a tossed salad, not just one American culture created by the fusion of many. At least, that's what they taught us in middle school history classes. And calling our country a "salad bowl" doesn't sound silly or anything. I just want to know who spends their days coming up with important new food metaphors for our country.  |
Written by Fledermaus (3448 comments posted) 16th April 2007 | Thanks Claire,
I heard that salad bowl metaphor first on Operah Winfrey's show :D Nothing wrong with it, as long as people respect eachother's cultures too. Looking forward to your piece. 
Witzl:
I'll see if I can find the book you mentioned Thanks for the advice. |
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