#Japanese diaspora

[writingwithcolor]

Japanese Q Speedround: Google Is Right There

Hi, it’s mod Rina. It’s time to speedrun some asks. 

@troublsomeidiots​ asked: 

I'm writing a character who is both black and Japanese and lives in japan in a primarily Japanese area and wanted some help in writing a person who is biracial who lives in primarily homogenous society? Like what kind of struggles she would face, especially as a person who has never met anyone who is black other than in passing?

Open Youtube. Hit search bar on Youtube. "being black in japan" "half black half japanese in japan" "black hafu in japan". Try different combinations of keywords. Bon voyage.

(neither Marika nor I are Black. We will not be speaking to experiences we do not have.) (we can outsource to some of our friends if you ask a specific question. These are not specific questions.) 

(Black Japanese readers--please feel free to comment if there’s something you want OP to know!)

@layzeal​ asked: 

Hello! I have a question regarding family/last names in Edo period Japan. My story takes place in 1816, my character was born in 1796 from a commoner family (that she gets separated from a few years later, and in a different country).

I've read that regular people in Japan didn't adopt the use of family names until Meiji restoration, but I'm not sure how true that is. Would a family of commoners in that period carry a family name, or would they only use their first names? And any idea if that family would have to present a last name when moving/passing by a different country that does use them?

It's important for me to know, since the existence of a last name or not would quite heavily influence how hard it'd be for the family to meet again, and which means would be used. Thanks in advance!

When I gave Google some keywords from your query, the second result explained how pre-Meiji commoners without family/clan names used bynames to distinguish themselves, and gives additional data on them. Maybe give it another Google? 

@weavefeather asked:

Hello, I am a writer and I really need some advice. I am wotking on my book since a few years, maybe 2 or 3, and I finally got the points together how it could begin. My plan is that my MC (named Nanami Kudo) is an lawyer of the FBI and has to go to her homecountry Japan, beacuse they send her to foreign investigations about a syndicate of people.....  And the some things happen, like her brother who still lives in jp doesn't really welcomes her, some complications with the police and so on... 

But thats not the point! Im really struggling to take in words how she gets to the other country, leaving her home behind and her partner she worked with. Do you have any advice on it, maybe how to structure it, some words or scenarios that fit?

How she gets to the other country: …..She flies there.

How US government agents/workers relocate and what the experience is like: That's your job to google. We are not government agents. Try anecdata on reddit, reddit AMAs, and Quora.

It’s unclear what her relationship/proximity to Japan is. What kind of nikkei is she? Is she mixed race or monoracial? How much Japanese can she speak? So many unknowns. Go read our Japanese tag and appreciate just how many ways one can be a Japanese person. Until then, you are nowhere near close to being able to write a nikkei homecoming plot. 

Lastly, you are the author. Give us scenarios yourself and come back to us.

In Conclusion

Guys, you all gots to google some more. It’s beneficial to both of us: not only do we get to help with more specific things and have enough info to do so, but you don’t have to wait months until your ask comes through the backlog only to receive an answer you could have researched in anywhere from a couple days to 3 minutes. 

~ Rina

“But Rina, I don’t know how!” 

You’re in luck!

First, try one of our own post on Google shortcuts. 

Second, stay tuned for some very relevant posts...

COMING SOON: WWC’s A Beginner’s Guide to Academic Research

[wearejapanese]

Open Letter to Nikkei on Palestine

We, the undersigned Nikkei artists, academics, cultural workers, and people of conscience, pledge our solidarity with the Palestinian people, who have suffered 75 years of Israeli apartheid, settler colonialism, military occupation, and ethnic cleansing. In response to the open call from Palestinian artists and cultural workers for a cultural and economic boycott of Israel, we pledge to accept neither professional invitations to Israel, nor funding from any institutions or corporations linked to its government until it ends its illegal occupation of Palestine. We call on all Nikkei people and organizations to join us in this boycott. 

[pucex]

#mapporn #globalsolidarity

#japanese diáspora #pucex

#xpuigc

[calixcasual]

https

[sapphire-monkey]

My first tumblr hate message! I feel like a true tumblr citizen! Sorry not sorry that I happened to be born to a half Japanese father and Irish German mother. You're darn right, that I'm going to show support to my father's side of the family when I grew up getting kung fu jokes and being mistaking for being Chinese at school. Your darn right that I'm proud of my Japanese heritage when my father was so ashamed of it that he would pretend like he never grew up with a Japanese mother. He grew up in the American south, I'm not surprised he turned out the way he did.

Fuck you if you think I'm ashamed. Fuck you for calling me racist trash. Because I want to show solidarity to my father who is so wounded by his childhood.

[lord-shitbox]

[ask b4 reposting]

ais + japanese culture

insert guy deranged in front of corkboard image. so many feelings about him.

EDIT: THINGS I FORGOT TO MENTION

-the spider lilies on his enamel pin (associated with death in japan)

-red makeup at the outer corners of his eyes (this is a whole thing in traditional japanese makeup, geisha and kabuki makeup styles both commonly have it if you want to look more into it)

[lokh]

why do you still prefer calling him shuro over toshiro? just curious

makes it clearer to the anime onlys and i find it interesting that a lot of japanese fans have no problem saying shuro still lmao

[panvani]

Watched Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence last night. Japanese people are always making some art about how sad WWII was. If you were Japanese.

[cardiac-agreste]

The linguistic richness of Himawari House is incredible. It's a story about a girl whose family moved from Japan to the US when she was little, and now she's taking a gap year to reconnect with her heritage.

But her Japanese is weak from all those years fighting to assimilate into American culture. Her new flatmates include a Singaporean girl, a Korean girl, and two Japanese guys. The first two speak good English, while the latter two do not.

The way the author visually depicts bilingualism, a lack of fluency, dialects, accents, and the process of language acquisition is amazing and a WHOLE ASS MOOD.

I see so much of myself in this story since I, too, moved to Japan from the US with decent but not great Japanese, and come from a household where I had to re-acquire my family's language in adulthood with great effort to preserve my culture.

I can't recommend this graphic novel enough.

[opina-et-ed]

so pissed that I (a hafu) wasn't named midori because 20 years ago naming your asian kid an asian name in a non-asian country was considered weird and bullying worth but today non-asian bitches are using midori and other asian names and naming their non-asian babies those too because "it's kawaii". they either shame us for our culture or they lowkey steal it from us.

[writingwithcolor]

Shintoist Japanese-French Tourist Trapped Abroad, With Tattoo-Like Curse Marks

heavenlyfury asked:

Hello! I have a question regarding a character for a short story I'm developing. Here's the general gist of it : there's a curse physically spreading on earth, and it's unstoppable. The people it comes in contact with suffer tremendously, going mad with pain and a sense of grief so strong that they can die in minutes. But for years, this curse seems to stop... Until it hits the western coasts of Spain and Portugal one summer (the curse actually traveled under the ocean). So people die or flee, but a few of them survive and become cursed, with marks on their bodies showing the influence of the curse. Among them is a group of teenagers in Galicia (the region of Spain that is just north of Portugal, where my family comes from), some of whom are tourists. Specifically, a young Portuguese boy (Pedro) and a young Japanese girl (Mitsuki) who both lived in France (my home country) and are now stuck in Spain, unable to return home. 

My question is about the Japanese girl, and her religious (shintoist?) practices specifically. After some research, I've read that Japanese people tend to follow rituals seriously, but don't necessarily consider themselves very religious. But I am not sure how those rituals could be applied in a setting where there is no Japanese community. Would this girl create a sort of shrine for herself? Would she follow some celebrations on her own? And if so, which celebrations would she be familiar with, as a Japanese living in France?

Another question I have regarding this character is about the curse. The signs it leaves on the body are very visible and would kinda look like moving tattoos. But I remember that tattoos have a criminal connotation in Japan. I thought that Mitsuki would try to hide those tattoos under her clothing and would have an initial distrust of anyone wearing something similar out of their own volition, but is there something I should be careful about with this?

Thank you in advance for any advice you can give me!

Regarding Mitsuki’s Religion: 

You need more research on Shinto, Japanese Buddhism and current religious trends for Japanese individuals domestically and abroad, in addition to more research on Japanese diaspora and their modes of identity expression. And I mean fairly serious research. The above would be like me writing a story about a girl in a Catholic school in France without having ever read the Bible, while also having no familiarity with the the religious history of Europe, the structure of institutions within the Catholic Church and further not knowing terms like "mass", "eucharist", "communion", "confession", etc.

Similarly, your context is clear but not why a Japanese character makes sense for the story you are telling. Why is Mitsuki living in France? How did she or her family come to live in France? Which country does she consider "home"? France? Japan? Both? Neither? What is her relationship with her Japanese identity? Does she have a French identity? If so, what is the interplay between both of her identities? All of these would in turn inform her relationship with religion and personal perception of norms surrounding physical appearances. It's not that Japanese diaspora don't exist in France. They do. It's rather that the circumstances that result in someone's family leaving Japan and ending up pretty much anywhere in Europe (as opposed to more common destinations like the Americas or other parts of Asia) are going to be distinct enough to have an impact on how that person turns out to be the person they are.

- Marika.

I think what you’re missing is that I don’t have a sense of what her personality is, or what her personal values are, or why she is assumed to be a typical, mainstream specimen of her society.

You’ve opened with the generalization that Japanese people are spiritual & ritualistic but not strictly religious, but I feel like that’s only a thesis statement to a much longer and complicated explanation about mixing religions and philosophies (plus westernization) in Japan. And more importantly, there’s nothing that binds you to include this in Mitsuki’s characterization. 

~ Rina

Regarding Mitsuki’s Markings, Tattoos

With respect to tattoos, sure, negative associations with tattoos exist among mainland Japanese individuals due to traditional associations between irezumi (Japanese traditional tattoo artistry) and organized crime. Think about how people in Russia or the US might regard prison/ gang tattoos. The presence of these tattoos makes legitimate employment and participation in general Japanese society difficult for those who have them when they are obviously visible. However, younger generations, many Japanese diaspora and minority groups within Japan looking to reclaim tattoos (ex.: Ainu, Uchinanchu) don't make the same associations. However, consider: A number of businesses (like hot springs and bath-houses) will often bar anyone with tattoos from entry, regardless of the tattoo's origin. Similarly a landlord in Japan or a company in Japan could justify not renting to someone or hiring them by the presence of a tattoo, and there's not much the individual could do about it. The practical realities of stigma against tattoos is something of which most people who have regular interaction with mainland Japan are aware. Does Mitsuki have this awareness and how does this awareness shape her?

That said, I don't think anyone would look at a curse marking that effectively serves as a proxy for a disease/ pandemic and associate it with tattoos, however much their discomfort with tattoos. Irezumi in particular are so distinctive in design and motifs that it's not going to be mistaken for a something that functions as a rash and lets others know who is affected by the curse. Similarly, if this curse has been spreading around the world, I can't imagine people not being familiar with its appearance. 

- Marika.

Again: Personality. Is Mitsuki reserved, conservative? Unapologetic, countercultural? Artistic, fashion-forward? Whether or not she is averse to body markings should be primarily because of these traits you choose. Every single time we talk about stereotyping & generalizations on this blog, this is the whole issue. Someone’s ethnicity or religion or race—or the mainstream values held by a particular ethnic or religious or racial group—should not constrain their personality or character. Of course, someone’s background can & will influence their beliefs system, and that can clash or match their personality in interesting ways. For example, Mitsuki may be totally down to get tats, but may try to hide them or the markings from other Japanese people, because she knows there’s taboo/judgment on a wider level or in her family/community. Or she might be a more traditionalist type, meaning her values align with the taboo, meaning she feels her shame or disgust more strongly. It completely depends. 

Also consider Mitsuki’s home is in France and the people around her are wearing them freely. A lot of American Nikkei folks have tattoos, too, and their relationship with them can be as complicated as “I was torn about it because of my cultural upgringing, parental pressure, and admittance to onsen affecting my sense of belonging in Japan but I also acknowledge that as diaspora I am viewed as an outsider and it empowers me to flout conventions to reclaim this abjection” or as simple as “I got an origami design cuz I’m half Japanese and also it’s neat idk.” 

~ Rina

P.S. Japanese people—yes, in mainland Japan, not criminal—have tattoos! Japanese people who are tattoo artists exist! And they are currently advocating for the destigmatization of tattoos and lower legal barriers for tattoo artists to practice! And with western media & celebrity becoming more available than ever on the internet, it’s a cultural tide that is turning overall! Again: generalizations of cultures are not helpful when taken at face value!

Finally, congratulations, you have unlocked the Motivation Matters PSA achievement! See the PSA and its explanation here:

[sapphire-monkey]

I'm Sansei but I didn't grow up with my Japanese heritage at all. My dad and his mother did their best to assimilate to American culture. My grandmother converted to Catholicism when she married my Irish grandfather. She died when I was really little. My father was bullied relentlessly growing up and I think he developed a lot of internalized racism for that. He refused to learn Japanese and wanted so badly to fit in.

I've been trying to learn more about my heritage, but I understand that I grew up far away from Japan in a country that's very dominantly white and Christian.

why do people act like diaspora Japanese aren't in tune with their heritage culture or language like I personally know 2nd generation Japanese Americans who speak their heritage language fluently, partake in their heritage culture, volunteer with Japanese organizations to learn more about their heritage, and travel to Japan annually to visit extended family.

I agree, I also know a lot of Sansei and Yonsei who are also similarly connected to their families in Japan or were able to become connected and are competent in Japanese and live in Japan.

The people who act like diaspora are "not enough" are usually trying to downplay the experiences so that their argument can appear elevated and "right" because when it comes to certain cultural-identity-appropriation-racism issues, diaspora are more likely to say something against it. Sometimes the people claiming diaspora are not "enough" are racist or completely ignorant and aren't looking to better educate themselves about the issue. They simply want their answer to be seen as the correct ones and are willing to dismiss someone's lived experience because it doesn't match with their imagined stereotypes in their head.

- I

I think it’s fair to say Mod I speaks from the perspective of someone embedded in the Nikkei community. Here’s my take as someone who is not. It’s not an answer many people will like.

Bluntly, these people are right. In many parts of the US, those of us who engage with our heritage are outnumbered by those who don’t.

That’s how assimilation works.

Okinawan diaspora, I think, are a special case, but given how many classmates I attended Japanese school with as a kid, few actually maintain ties with Japan into adulthood. Among those of us who hold onto culture into adulthood, the attrition rate accelerates as we deal with xenophobia from Japan. My own sibling doesn’t really engage with their Japanese heritage to the same degree I do because they see it as a lost cause.

Cultural drop off is a real thing, but I think it’s more important to recognize that diaspora don’t get credit for how hard it is to maintain a culture outside its natural ecosystem. I also think it’s unfair that diaspora cultural engagement is held up to an artificially high standard.

To me, a better way to reframe the question “Why do people ignore how many diaspora engage with their culture?” is to ask “Why do we demand diaspora prove their cultural legitimacy?”

- Saitō

Edited for clarity

[reductionisms]

by what point in gintama had sorachi decided gin killed shouyou?

it's helpful to look at history here. shouyou's real life counterpart yoshida shouin was, in actuality, arrested in an anti loyalist purge and beheaded. he also really did run shouka sonjuku, of which rl takasugi and katsura were both loyal students.

unlike shouyou, though, shouin was extremely patriotic/ethnonationalistic. while the eng article doesnt talk much about it, shouin formulated the idea of, and advocated for, japan conquering and colonizing china, taiwan, the philippines, the ryukyu islands (now okinawa) and hokkaido, among other things. this proposal, while ostensibly to counter western imperialism, was founded in a fundamental and violent racism. its results were devastating. i will expand on gintama and actual japanese history further sometime soon.

in any case, the existence of katsura and takasugi in gintama already presupposes that they were devoted students of shou(you)in, and, furthermore, that shouyou was beheaded by the bakufu in the ansei purge (this is basic history you learn in school). since sorachi had gin as jouishishi in bakumatsu era from the very outset, it's safe to assume he also planned on introducing takasugi/katsura from the beginning, and therefore the concept of shouyou is loosely associated to gintama from its conception.

but when gin's past is introduced via katsura (ch. 5), the essential "trauma" is the death of gin and zura's shared comrades in the joui war. this is repeated in harasume arc (gin's nightmare), and even takasugi's introduction (can't you hear the voices of our dead comrades?). if sorachi had 'known' that gin killed shouyou from the beginning-- or, to be even simpler, if he had simply associated gin with shouyou from the beginning in any way-- i feel like gin's war flashbacks/thoughts would be a little more directed.

further, unlike zura and takasugi, gin isn't a historical figure, he's a mythical figure, from almost 700 years earlier. so he has no reason to be connected to shouyou in the first place, aside from the tangential relation of knowing his students.

that said, i think sorachi definitely knew gin killed shouyou by the benizakura arc (ch. 86-97). obviously here it's established that gin was shouyou's student, but, more importantly, in response to takasugi talking about how he can't help but fight with/hate the world that took shouyou from them, we get zura's "takasugi, i don't know how many times i've thought to raze this world into nothing, but he.. he's withstanding it. gintoki, the one who should hate this world more than anyone else, is withstanding it..." So takasugi and zura reflect on how shouyou (again, the well-known historic "martyr" for the meiji revolution) was taken from them, and the one who should hate the world the most because of that is gintoki. gintoki and shouyou are finally associated; gintoki's "hatred" is given primacy against even that of shouyou's real-life student's. yeah, sorachi knew by here.

but did sorachi know earlier? i mean, why not? just because gintoki's "tragic backstory" before benizakura is centered exclusively around dead comrades, doesn't mean sorachi hadn't decided he'd killed shouyou. i guess i just dont think sorachi was is good at planning, or writing in general, but that's my own issue.

an interesting argument could be made for the rengokukan arc (ch. 42-44). here the gintama-canon shouka sonjuku parallels are ridiculous. a mass-murderer-- literally referred to as a "demon"-- wants to atone, so takes up residence in an abandoned buddhist temple and adopts poor orphans who call him sensei. he and gin sit and talk on the temple porch almost like they're in a rakuyou flashback. gin calls him a human. when he attempts to escape with his kids in the night, he's killed by a shady government organization, and when gin learns of his death, we only see gin's back, a bit of his shaded face (a technique sorachi uses later on whenever gin gets upset about shouyou).

maybe at this point the gin-shouyou backstory was cooking in sorachi's brain. maybe some ideas of utsuro as well-- though probably not utsuro in the form we actually see him, perhaps something a bit simpler. notably, though, the demon/human, doushin, is killed by the bakufu: there's no moral dilemma, no teacher-slaying. it's not as direct as the shinigami arc will later be.

anyways, there was no real point to this, other than that it bothers me. i have no desire to dig through internet archives for sorachi interviews, either, so this is pure conjecture. if anyone has any other ideas i'd be interested to hear.

[mapsontheweb]

Which year it will be on January 1?

The map highlights the diversity of calendars used globally, showing which year it will be on January 1, 2025, according to the Gregorian calendar. Most countries (marked in green) use the Gregorian calendar (2025) for civil purposes. Other calendars include the Islamic calendar (1446), used in Muslim-majority countries; the Hebrew calendar (5785), in Israel for religious purposes; the Buddhist calendar (2568), common in Southeast Asia; and the Chinese calendar (4722), significant for traditional events in China and its diaspora. Unique systems include the Nepali Vikram Sambat (2081), the Burmese calendar (1387), the Ethiopian calendar (2017), the Japanese Reiwa 7, the Bengali calendar (1431), the Persian calendar (1403), the Bhutanese Drukpa (2481), the North Korean Juche (114), and the Taiwanese Minguo (114). These calendars, often tied to religious and cultural traditions, reflect the world’s rich diversity despite the global dominance of the Gregorian system.

by maven.mapping/instagram

[suchananewsblog]

Edmund de Waal: Decoding stories of exile

Twelve years ago, I discovered The Hare with the Amber Eyes, a memoir by celebrated British ceramist Edmund de Waal, in a book store in Edinburgh. It was another year before I read it and it became my all-time favourite book. Over the years, I have gifted it to friends, family, those I met at work and oftentimes to complete strangers. I’ve given away over 300 copies to a mix of people whose…

[specialmouse]

when i talk about japanese exceptionalism/fetishism being racist i dont mean that it solely affects, or even MOSTLY affects, japanese people. japan is the america of asia. japanese people on the mainland are fine. but what japanese exceptionalism and fetishism of japanese culture does is, well, exactly what it seems like im saying--it places japan (a deeply racist imperialist society) as the pinnacle of asian civilization. and what does that do? it places all other asian civilizations on a hierarchy, usually determined by skin color, and how close to "japanese" the asian person/asian ethnicity is. there's a reason why westerners are gooning over south korea right now and it's because they see a lot of similarities between south korean culture and japanese culture (which is funny because uh, colonialism guys. come on)---but hate china and the dprk, and see all of southeast asia as dirty and backwards.

when the archetypal japanese woman (pale, hairless, thin, yamato, submissive, etc.) is fetishized, it is usually not the japanese woman who faces the brunt of fetishistic violence (unless she is of the diaspora in which case... lol)--it is the vietnamese woman, the thai woman, the indonesian woman, etc., because they are more vulnerable to exploitation a) because they are more likely to be brown and *andre 3000 voice* across cultures darker skinned people suffer the most, b) southeast asian countries are still majorly suffering from the after effects of western colonialism and asymmetric warfare that leaves their country far worse off economically (particularly vietnam, laos, and cambodia) and, c) westerners, despite recognizing her as an asian woman, do not see her as a Japanese woman, and therefore treat her worse because they see her as uncivilized. there's a reason why, when pedophiles want an asian child, they go to thailand, not japan---because the sex tourism industry isn't something they can get rid of. japanese women are considered the ultimate trophy to be shown off as a sign of the man's virility and masculinity, and southeast asian women are seen as consolation prizes to the men who can't get the "real thing". do you know how many mixed asians i know whose dads scooped their moms up from a military base in the philippines or okinawa? and the mom has only gone to see her family maybe five times in 20 years? she's not the porcelain doll the man wanted, but she still has to try and "japanize" herself to be seen as even worthy of respect, which she still doesn't get because no matter what she does she will not be japanese. that's what japanese exceptionalism does.